


had a dream about you, baby

by vtforpedro



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Child Abuse, Dreamsharing, Falling In Love, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Kids to Teens to Adults, M/M, Mary Lou Barebone is Her Own Warning, POV Credence Barebone, Same ages
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-07
Updated: 2020-10-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:34:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26872999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vtforpedro/pseuds/vtforpedro
Summary: In which Credence Barebone and Percival Graves grow up together in a shared dream and experience the trials of life and love as they try to find each other in the waking world.
Relationships: Credence Barebone/Original Percival Graves
Comments: 29
Kudos: 62





	had a dream about you, baby

Credence is eight years old when he has the first dream.  
  
It’s a strange dream, where he appears on a grassy hillside, nothing but miles and miles of rolling hills and lakes laid out before him. There’s a towering oak tree nearby and he sits in its shade and looks at leaves on the ground.   
  
They flutter to life, folding into birds, and dance across the ground in front of him. He smiles and knows this is a dream, not just because of the landscape, but because Ma isn’t here to punish him for using the Devil’s powers.   
  
He’s been able to do things like this for a few months now, though he learned quickly to not do it in front of Ma, because the first time had resulted in his belt being taken to his back for the first time. He’s made a few mistakes since then, used the Devil’s power on accident, when he was frightened or upset in some way, and Ma took the belt to him again.   
  
Ma always talks about witches being disciples of the Devil and he’s afraid of them, especially now that he knows he’s been touched by one, but sometimes in his dreams he can use the power and it’s gentle.   
  
It’s always gentle but Ma says that’s to make him feel comfortable enough to let the Devil in. She says she has to beat it out of him and one day it’ll go away, but as Credence watches the birds make of oak leaves dance over his bare feet, tickling him, he doesn’t know how it can be evil.   
  
Unless it really is the Devil trying to get in. But he likely can’t get in when Credence is asleep, so he watches the birds with a smile, and feels a warm breeze move through his hair.   
  
Movement catches Credence’s eye and he looks up. To his great surprise, another boy is climbing the hill, a scowl on his face as he looks around, like this isn’t the most beautiful place in the world. Credence is sure it must be, but the other boy looks annoyed as he gazes around.   
  
Credence holds his breath as he watches the boy look at the oak tree. He stops when he sees Credence and frowns even more fiercely.   
  
“Who are you?” he demands.   
  
“I…” Credence trails off and thinks that’s not a fair question. “Who are you?” he feels bold enough to ask. “You’re in my dream.”   
  
“You’re in _my_ dream,” the other boy says and stomps closer. “I’ve never had a dream like this before.”   
  
Credence watches him warily. He’s a little taller than Credence, skinny but not as skinny as Credence, with dark hair and thick eyebrows. He’s wearing silky black pajamas and Credence feels a little embarrassed then, for his long white sleepshirt. Whoever this boy is, he owns fine pajamas and eats well, Credence knows that much.   
  
But then he’s only dreaming, so this boy must not be real.   
  
“Neither have I,” Credence says and looks at the birds at his feet, pecking at the ground.   
  
“You’re a wizard then?” the boy asks as he moves closer, his eyes on the birds, a wrinkle between his eyebrows.   
  
Credence quickly looks up at him. “No!” he says. “Of course I’m not. Wizards are evil.”   
  
The boy’s eyebrows raise as he stares at Credence. He looks at the birds, who steadily flutter down to the ground, only leaves again. “You’re using magic,” he says matter-of-factly. “Wizards aren’t evil. I’m a wizard.”   
  
“Wizards and witches are disciples of the Devil.”   
  
“Who told you that?” the other boy asks with a small, dismissive laugh. “A no-maj?”   
  
“My mother.”   
  
“She’s not a witch?”   
  
“No! She says witches mean to enslave us all.”   
  
The boy stares at Credence. “That’s stupid,” he finally says. “There’s nothing wrong with being a witch or wizard. It’s normal. Does she know you’re a wizard?”   
  
Credence frowns. “This is a dream,” he says. He’s confused, because people in his dreams don’t usually speak to him like this. “You’re not real.”   
  
“I am _too,”_ the boy says. “My name is Percival Graves. Magic is strange sometimes. Maybe we’re sharing a dream. I’ll ask my sister when I wake up. What’s your name?”   
  
“Credence,” Credence says slowly and frowns more. “How do you know you’re a wizard?”   
  
“I’m Pureblood,” Percival Graves says with some pride. “My entire family going back to the Dark Ages have been witches and wizards. My mother, my father, my sister, and all of our family. You’re no-maj born. That means you have non-magical parents, but that’s alright. It happens a lot.”   
  
Credence stares at him, blinking a little and scratching his head. Percival does seem to know a lot about this, but Credence can’t be sure if it’s only a dream and his mind is making up strange things because of the strange things he can do.   
  
He wonders if Percival is the Devil in disguise, but he brushes that thought aside. He’s only a boy, a boy Credence’s age, who is a wizard.   
  
“How do I know you’re a wizard?” Credence asks.   
  
“Because I said so,” Percival says but he sighs and moves closer to Credence. He sits in front of him and waves his hand over the leaves, which leap up into the shape of lions and begin prowling between them. “See? You’re normal, just like I am. We’ll get our Ilvermorny letters soon.”   
  
“Ilvermorny?” Credence asks distractedly as he watches the lions, smiling to himself. It doesn’t seem evil or scary or like it could be used to enslave regular people.   
  
“Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry,” Percival says importantly. “We get our letters on our eleventh birthdays, you know. Three more years for me. And then the first term starts in late August. If we’re sharing a dream, I’ll see you there.”   
  
Credence stares at him and bites his lip. “There’s a school for witches?”   
  
“Yes, haven’t you heard me?” Percival asks with some impatience. “You’ll get your letter on your eleventh birthday. A professor will bring it to your home, since you’re no-maj born, and tell you and your parents all you need to know about being a wizard and going to school. My sister is going to start her fourth year soon. It’s amazing she says, but I already knew that. We’ll have our wands the day term starts and we’ll be able to use real spells.”   
  
“But that…” Credence trails off and wrinkles his nose. “How come we don’t know about it? No… no-majs?”   
  
“The Statute, of course,” Percival says. “You’ve got a lot to learn, you know, but everyone will help at school. We’re in hiding because no-majs are frightened of us, even though we don’t give them any reason to be. It keeps them and us safe, for them to not know. There are schools all over the world. Witches and wizards are all over too.”   
  
Credence isn’t entirely sure he believes Percival. He eyes him and looks down at the lions, and gently picks at the blades of grass near his knee. It would be nice if it was true, he supposes, to know that he is a wizard and not alone.   
  
But Ma always tells him they’re disciples of the Devil and that he has the Devil in him, so how can he know if Percival Graves doesn’t too?   
  
If they all don’t?   
  
“Where do you live?” Percival asks.   
  
Credence looks at him and isn’t sure he likes this boy. He’s very demanding in his questions, a constant frown on his face, and Credence is jealous of his silk pajamas.   
  
“New York,” he mutters.   
  
Percival sits up more. “Really?” he asks and for once sounds a bit excited. “I live in New York too! Where for you?”   
  
“Manhattan,” Credence says and smiles when Percival grins, the frown gone away now. “You too?”   
  
“No, I live Upstate with my family,” Percival says. “But MACUSA is in Manhattan and I’ll work there someday.”   
  
“Mah… MACUSA?”   
  
“Magical Congress of the United States of America,” Percival recites proudly. “That’s where the Auror department is. I’m going to be an Auror. My entire family has been. Well, not all of them, but the good ones.”   
  
“I don’t know what an Auror is,” Credence says with a frown. “Are you making this up?”   
  
“No!” Percival says. “Why would I? An Auror is… they catch bad people. Bad witches and wizards and they put them in prison. They’ve very important people and the job is very dangerous, but the Graves family has always produced good Aurors.”   
  
Credence thinks they sound like police officers and nods. “I don’t know if this is real,” he says. “But maybe I could be an Auror too.”   
  
Percival shrugs. “As long as you get good marks and are good with Defense, you could be,” he says. “It is strange, isn’t it? To share a dream? But I’ve read about all kinds of strange magic.”   
  
Credence can’t read and his cheeks flush when he remembers it. He looks down at the grass. “Why would we be sharing dreams?”   
  
“I don’t know,” Percival says breezily. “I’ll ask my sister, she knows everything. If we share another dream, I’ll tell you. Or I’ll tell you at Ilvermorny. August 27th is when we get on the train and go. It’s a safe place where… where unsafe things don’t happen.”   
  
Ma comes to mind, the rage on her face and a belt held in her hand and Credence grimaces. He looks at Percival, who looks mildly disturbed himself, and when they catch each other’s eye, they quickly look away from each other.   
  
“I feel like I’m waking up,” Credence says abruptly. He feels it, awareness in the back of his mind, and he looks around the rolling hills and blue skies above. They’re hazy and he thinks he sees the window sill next to his bed.   
  
“Oh,” Percival says and sounds disappointed. “Well, I suppose I’ll see you at Ilvermorny then. Or here. Good morning, Credence.”   
  
“Good morning,” Credence says as he looks at Percival. At his dark eyes and hair and thick eyebrows and frown and hopes he doesn’t forget him.   
  
Credence does wake, warm and comfortable in his bed, which he so rarely is. He looks up at his window with a frown, seeing the coming dawn, and blinks slowly as he thinks about his dream.   
  
He often forgets his dreams, flowing like water through the cracks of his fingers, never to be remembered, but he remembers everything about this one. The way the warm breeze felt in his hair, the smell of grass and fresh water, the birds and lions dancing at his feet, a boy his age and his frown.   
  
His insistence that Credence is a wizard. That he’s normal and one day, on his eleventh birthday, he will be told he can go to a school for children like him.   
  
Credence briefly thinks of telling Ma before terror seizes at his heart with the idea. She would only hurt him more, only try to beat it out of him, and she would never let him go. He can’t tell her, can’t tell her until someone comes to see him on his birthday, and she can accept that witches aren’t so very bad.   
  
He looks at the scratch marks on his window sill, done out of boredom, whenever he’s sent to his room at five in the evening and not allowed out until morning. Credence brushes his fingers over them and smiles when they’re mended, the window sill unmarked, the way he wishes he could make his scars sometimes.   
  
Maybe if he tries, the scars earned in the last year will go away.   
  
——   
  
A few weeks after the dream, Credence accepts that that’s all it was. Only a dream, an odd one, but nothing to be too worried about.   
  
He still remembers Percival Graves, often, especially when his magic makes an appearance, in the presence of Ma or not. When Credence is punished badly for it, he thinks Percival must have been wrong, and that witches are truly evil. Ma is so sure and he wouldn’t dare question her.   
  
Months pass, then a year and nearly two. Credence is ten years old when he goes to sleep one night and he finds himself in a familiar place.   
  
It looks untouched, as if only Credence and Percival have ever been here before, and Credence looks out over the rolling green hills and the blue skies above, dotted here and there with fluffy white clouds. At the lakes, glittering like diamonds, and he wishes he could stay here.   
  
Stay here and forget the church. Or come here every night in his dreams.   
  
In April he will be eleven years old and he wonders, wonders if what Percival said was true.   
  
He sits down on the top of the hill and looks out over the landscape.   
  
“I didn’t think it would happen again.”   
  
Credence looks up and to his surprise and secret relief, there stands Percival Graves, just ten or so feet away. He’s older and he’s still wearing fancy silk pajamas. They’re blue today.   
  
He’s still taller than Credence.   
  
“Neither did I,” Credence admits and looks away. “I thought you were only a dream.”   
  
“I’ve never had dreams like these,” Percival says. “My sister didn’t know what it was. I think she said what I did… magic is strange sometimes. You look like you’re in pain.”   
  
Credence blinks and looks up at Percival. He hadn’t felt pain until Percival had said something and now he feels it, the stinging in his back. He smiles and shakes his head.   
  
“I’m not,” he says. “Are you eleven yet?”   
  
“No,” Percival says and sits next to Credence. “My birthday is in March.”   
  
“Mine’s in April,” Credence says softly. “Can you still do magic?”   
  
“Yes, of course. I mean, not the kind of magic you can do with a wand and it’s a little harder to make happen these days,” Percival says. “But sometimes. Can’t you?”   
  
Credence smiles and shakes his head. “I think you were wrong about me,” he says. “My magic went away a year ago.”   
  
Percival frowns for a while. “It doesn’t go away,” he says, sounding confused. “It’s in your blood. We just get older and better at controlling it, is all. It’s still there.”   
  
“No,” Credence says softly. “I think it went away.”   
  
“Of course it didn’t, don’t be stupid,” Pericval says. “You’re just not trying hard enough.”   
  
“I’m not being stupid,” Credence mutters and looks down at the grass. “I have tried. It’s gone.”   
  
Percival is quiet for a while, picking out blades of grass near his feet. “Does your mother still think witches are bad?”   
  
Credence shrugs and he doesn’t like this dream. It feels sad and most of his dreams are nightmares or sad enough to make him wake up in tears and he wishes this place didn’t feel like that. It’s so beautiful and he thinks he’s only a stain on it.   
  
“She said the Devil left me when my magic left,” he says. “And to not let him back in or he’ll use me to hurt people.”   
  
“That’s ridiculous!” Percival says with such strong conviction that Credence looks at him. “The Devil isn’t even real. My sister always says people are evil and it doesn’t have anything to do with… with… higher powers, I think it’s called. That if God was real, he’d make all the pain stop. Christianity is stupid.”   
  
Credence wants to pray for Percival, hurriedly, so his soul isn’t damned, but he remembers that this is a dream and Percival isn’t real anyway. What he says here doesn’t matter.   
  
“You think a lot of things are stupid,” is what Credence says, because he’s not sure what to say otherwise to such blasphemy.   
  
“A lot of things are stupid. Especially you thinking your magic is gone,” Percival says, like it offends him personally. “Just try. Here.” He raises his hand over the blades of grass, until they come loose from the ground and weave tightly together, over and over again, until they form a small flower. “It’s easier in here to control than when I’m awake,” Percival muses with interest.   
  
He plucks the grass flower out of the air and hands it to Credence.   
  
Credence hesitantly takes it, thinking that it doesn’t look or feel evil, and twirls it in his fingers.   
  
“Go on, your turn,” Percival says.   
  
He’s very bossy, but Credence looks at him, older now, and thinks his frown must just be a part of the way he looks. He’s only ten like Credence, but he does look older, not as carefree and happy as other children Credence knows. Much like himself, he thinks, and looks away.   
  
“I don’t know how anymore,” Credence says. He holds his hand over the grass and tries to remember what it felt like, but nothing happens. “See? It’s gone.”   
  
“It’s not gone,” Percival says and for once he doesn’t sound annoyed. “You’re just scared.”   
  
“I’m not scared,” Credence says with a frown. It’s true, he realizes, not a lie. “I’m not scared in this place.”   
  
“Are you scared outside of it?”   
  
Credence bites his lip and stares down at the flower. “Sometimes,” he mumbles. “Don’t you get scared?”   
  
“Sometimes,” Percival says. “But not of my own magic. My family encourages magic, especially strong magic. It sounds like your mother wants you to be scared of it. Maybe you shouldn’t be. You’ll be going to Ilvermorny soon, you shouldn’t be scared.”   
  
“It went away,” Credence says firmly. “I told you, I’ve tried. I can’t do it anymore.”   
  
Percival sighs. “I bet you can.”   
  
“I can’t.”   
  
“Because you’re stupid.”   
  
Credence gasps and looks at Percival. “I am not,” he says angrily. “Stop calling me that.”   
  
“You’re stupid if you think it’s gone,” Percival says simply. “And you do, so you’re stupid.”   
  
“I am _not,”_ Credence growls and he thinks if he was braver, he would shove Percival. He’s just as mean as any other boy and Credence wishes he wasn’t in his dream. “Don’t call me it again or I’ll…”   
  
“You’ll what?” Percival taunts. “You’re so stupid you can’t use magic anymore, how can you—”   
  
Percival yelps a little when the flower rapidly unwinds in Credence’s hand and the blades of grass zoom toward his face and they must not be painful, but Percival holds his arms up until they stop slicing at him. They fall in a heap in his lap and Percival looks down at them once he’s lowered his arms.   
  
When he looks at Credence, who is gaping in shock, he looks smug.   
  
“You’re not stupid,” Percival says. “I was just saying it to make you mad. You’re only scared of your magic. You shouldn’t be.”   
  
Credence stares at him, not sure if he wants to smile or cry. “That was mean,” he says instead, because it was. “You didn’t have to be mean.”   
  
“Sometimes you have to get mad so you don’t drown in fears,” Percival says and smiles. “That’s what my sister says. She’s right about everything.”   
  
“Does she ever tell you you’re mean?”   
  
Percival laughs. “No,” he says and shrugs. “Sorry.”   
  
Credence sighs and looks at the grass in Percival’s lap. He smiles and when he lifts his hand, the blades perk up again and begin to wind together, until they make a little sun, which settles in the middle of his palm when he holds it out.   
  
“See,” Percival says. “You’re good at it when you want to be.”   
  
Credence smiles and sniffs as he looks at the sun. “Thank you, Percival.”   
  
“Percy,” Percival says quickly. “I don’t like to be called Percival.”   
  
“Why not?”   
  
Percy frowns for a while before he shakes his head and smiles. “It doesn’t matter,” he says. He holds his hand out and makes another flower. “Here, try this. Put it in your pocket and if it’s there when you wake up, you’ll know this was real.”   
  
Credence takes it and looks it over. He thinks that makes sense and puts it in his pocket over his chest and hands the sun to Percy. He takes it and puts it in his pajama pants pocket.   
  
“Come on, I want to see one of these lakes. I live near a few lakes and they don’t look like this at all.”   
  
Percy offers his hand to Credence and when Credence takes it, he’s warm and alive and feels real. It makes his heart race but Percy doesn’t look like he thinks much of it and leads the march down to the lake at the end of the hill.   
  
Its water is clear blue until it gets deeper and there are many fish in it, their scales reflecting rainbows of colors from the bright sun in the sky.   
  
When Percy kneels near the water and sticks his hand in, the fish swim to it and nibble on his fingers until he laughs.   
  
Credence smiles and sits next to him and reaches into the water. It’s refreshingly cool and is the clearest water Credence has ever seen. He giggles when the fish nibble at his fingers too and looks at Percy.   
  
“It’s not such a bad place,” Percy says as he looks around, then at Credence, smiling.   
  
He looks a lot more friendly when he smiles.   
  
But then it fades and something like worry fills his eyes instead. “I’m waking up,” Percy says. “Father is—”   
  
Credence gasps when Percy abruptly disappears. He stares at where he was kneeling, his heart hammering away, and wonders if that’s what happened when he woke up last time. He looks around the rolling hills, feeling lonely suddenly, like this place is too big for just him.   
  
He wakes, quickly, and Credence blinks tears away. He remembers then and frantically stuffs his hand in his pocket. When he pulls out a flower made of tightly woven grass blades, Credence lets himself cry.   
  
Percy is real, somewhere in this very state, and so is magic. Credence’s magic is real and it’s not gone, not gone the way Ma tried to make it go away.   
  
Soon he will be eleven and a letter will come for him and if he doesn’t see Percy in another dream, he’ll see him at a school for witches and wizards and hopefully he can hug him then, for making Credence not so afraid of himself today.   
  
——   
  
Credence doesn’t dream of Percy before his eleventh birthday. He’s excited all the same when he wakes in the morning, but he knows better than to show that to his mother.   
  
She doesn’t make mention of his birthday at all, something he’s used to, and Credence thanks her for breakfast but otherwise remains quiet, unless she speaks to him. He does his chores and helps her prepare for a sermon later in the evening. The knock comes around eleven in the morning and Credence is terribly nervous, his heart hammering wildly in his chest, and he watches Ma answer it.   
  
A woman with dark skin and hair is let in and she explains that she is Professor Calla from Ilvermorny, that Credence is a wizard, and he is welcome to start his first year of school on August 27th. It’s everything Percy said would happen and Credence feels like something is more whole in his heart. He can’t explain it, but he feels comforted as he listens to Professor Calla.   
  
Ma doesn’t say much to her, merely listens and asks the occasional short question. She says _it’s so very much to take in_ and Professor Calla gives her an address if she wishes to write to her and ask any questions before the first school term starts.   
  
After Ma has shown Professor Calla out, she looks at the letter in her hands, and Credence watches her anxiously.   
  
Something in him fractures when she slowly tears the thick parchment paper, until it’s only small, uneven pieces, and lets them fall to the floor. Ma looks at him and Credence knows then that he will not be going to Ilvermorny. That Ma has not been convinced this is normal, that she only realizes the wickedness in him is back, and Credence wishes to run after Professor Calla and beg her for help.   
  
“A witch,” Ma says softly. “I knew you must have been touched by the Devil, but to be born this way, Credence…” She shakes her head. “Your belt, Credence. Your shirt.”   
  
“Ma—”   
  
The slap rings out sharp and loud in the quiet church and the force of it sends Credence to the ground.   
  
He covers his stinging cheek and looks up at his mother in shock. She looms over him, angry now, her face twisted in rage that’s frightening, because she is usually so calm when she hurts him.   
  
“My own son,” she hisses. “My own son, a _witch._ My greatest shame. Your belt, Credence, until we banish the Devil from you.”   
  
Credence stares up at her, terror in his veins, and knows that life won’t be the same anymore after today. He knows pain, he’s so used to it, but he knows it is a turning point and wishes that he was never born.   
  
——   
  
It’s nearing Christmas when Credence falls asleep one night and opens his eyes to a familiar place.   
  
Rolling green hills and blue skies and shining lakes and Credence feels nothing but dread. The warm breeze feels hot and uncomfortable and the sun is too bright and the grass rolling in shimmering waves feels like a mockery of beauty.   
  
He wants to wake back up. He squeezes his eyes shut and desperately tries to wake up before Percy comes, digging his nails into his palms, his arms shaking with the effort.   
  
“Credence.”   
  
Credence gasps and turns around, looking at Percy. He’s standing a few feet behind him, staring at Credence, not frowning. He’s not frowning but he’s not smiling either. He looks strange, Credence thinks, still in soft and silky pajamas, his hair a little longer.   
  
He looks older, Credence thinks, and it hasn’t even been a year. Percy looks older and every time Credence looks at himself in the mirror, he thinks he looks younger.   
  
“Hi,” Credence says, because Percy doesn’t say anything else. “Do you think—”   
  
“Why aren’t you at Ilvermorny?” Percy asks.   
  
He sounds very serious for an eleven year old, Credence thinks with some despair.   
  
“My mother is homeschooling me,” Credence says. “I’m sorry we didn’t get to meet.”   
  
Percy frowns, just a little. “She can’t homeschool you,” he says. “She’s a no-maj.”   
  
Credence licks his lips nervously. “She… she asked, when… when the witch came with my letter, she asked how to homeschool me. She told Ma how and so that’s what we’ve been doing.”   
  
“Where’d you get your wand?”   
  
“I…” Credence trails off, thinking desperately, but Percy only said they’d have their wands at school. “In a wand shop,” he tries. “It’s—”   
  
“You’re lying,” Percy says simply, but he doesn’t sound angry. He looks upset and moves closer to Credence. “Your mother isn’t letting you go, is she? She’s not teaching you or letting anyone else either.”   
  
Credence feels tears in his eyes and looks away, his cheeks hot with embarrassment. “She doesn’t want me to be a witch,” he says. “It doesn’t matter.”   
  
“Yes, it does!” Percy says sharply enough that Credence startles and looks up at him. “Of course it matters, that’s what you are! It’s… it’s not right, what she’s doing. What she believes. You’re normal, Credence, you should be at school with me. Write to Ilvermorny or… or go to MACUSA! Go to MACUSA, they’re in Manhattan, go to them and tell them what’s happening.”   
  
Credence shakes his head quickly. “I can’t,” he says, the mere idea of defying his mother a terrifying one. He’s trembling and staggers backwards. “I can’t, I can’t… I can’t, Percy, she’ll… she already… I can’t!” he says loudly and with some desperation. “Please don’t tell anyone. Don’t tell anyone at Ilvermorny.”   
  
“She’ll hurt you?” Percy asks and to Credence’s great surprise, his eyes are bright too. “Credence, leave. Run away, go to MACUSA. It’s in the Woolworth Building in Manhattan. Go there and they’ll help you. They’ll send you here and you can get a wand and learn and we can meet—”   
  
“I can’t!” Credence cries. “You don’t understand, Percy. I can’t, she’ll… she’s my mother, I can’t run away.”   
  
“You can if she’s hurting you,” Percy says and moves his hands to Credence’s shoulders, grasping them. “Please, Credence, please promise me you’ll try. It doesn’t matter that she’s your mother if she’s hurting you.”   
  
“That’s blasphemy,” Credence says and swipes quickly at his cheeks. “She’s my mother, she’s… of course it matters.”   
  
“My sister says that it doesn’t matter even if they’re blood if all they do is hurt you,” Percy says and he sounds angry and bitter. “She says it matters even less if they are blood.”   
  
Credence shakes his head and pulls away. “Your sister isn’t right about everything,” he says. “I can’t leave my mother. It’s… it’s a sin, to abandon your family. If my mother doesn’t want me to be a witch, I can’t be.”   
  
“She’s hurting you, Credence,” Percy says. “If you aren’t going to get help, I’m going to tell our professors.”   
  
“No!” Credence shouts at the top of his lungs. “If you tell anyone, I’ll never speak to you again!”   
  
Percy stares at Credence, wounded, and he rubs angrily at his cheeks until they’re ruddy with color. He sits down and begins yanking grass out of the ground and shakes his head.   
  
“My father hurts me too,” Percy says, his voice low and ashamed. “School lets me escape him.”   
  
“See!” Credence says. “You aren’t running away either because he’s—”   
  
“I’m not running away because no one would believe me. My father is a well known, popular wizard. An upstanding citizen,” Percy snaps. “There is no escape for me. You have the chance because she’s just a no-maj. MACUSA will take you away from her and bring you to Ilvermorny.”   
  
Credence stares at him and sniffles. He looks away, out over the lake and doesn’t think Percy is being fair. Why can’t he tell MACUSA his father hurts him? Witches must be able to tell when someone is lying. He thinks Percy could escape too, but he doesn’t say so.   
  
He sits down and stares at his bony knees. “I’m sorry we didn’t get to meet,” he mumbles. “I’m sorry your father hurts you.”   
  
Percy snorts. “At least magic helps me. You don’t even have that,” he says. “I’m sorry we didn’t get to meet too,” he adds more quietly. “I wanted to. Maybe we still will. Maybe you can think about it and still come to school. You could be sorted into Wampus, maybe, that’s where I am.”   
  
“Wampus?” Credence asks with a smile he can’t help as he looks at Percy. “That isn’t real.”   
  
“It is too,” Percy says. “It’s the best House. Ilvermorny has Houses, you know, that you get sorted into. You stay in your House until you graduate after your seventh year. You share common rooms with everyone in your House and dormitories too. I share a dormitory with four boys in my year. One of them wants to be an Auror too.”   
  
Credence smiles still, even while his heart aches, because at least he can hear about Ilvermorny here. Where his mother can’t, where his mother can’t know he’s experiencing it in some small way.   
  
“What’s Wampus mean?”   
  
“It’s just the name of a magical creature. The school founders named each House after one,” Percy says with a shrug. “A lot of Aurors come from Wampus. There's Horned Serpent, which favors scholars. Kids who are smart and like to study,” Percy clarifies when Credence frowns. “Wampus favors warriors. Pukwudgie favors healers. And Thunderbird favors adventurers. That’s how it’s explained to us anyway but there’s more to it than that.”   
  
“I don’t think I’d fit in with any of those,” Credence says and looks at his bare feet. “I can’t read much and I can’t fight and I don’t have magic to heal. I’ve never been on an adventure.”   
  
Percy laughs. “I told you there’s more to it. It doesn’t mean exactly those things. Adventurer just means… just means you want to go beyond where you’ve already been. Maybe higher learning or traveling a lot for a job. Stuff like that. Warrior can just mean a kid who can take care of themselves and probably always will. Or that they like to protect people, that’s what Wampus told me when it picked me.”   
  
Credence bites his lip and wonders if that’s why Percy is so insistent he leave his mother. Because he wants to protect him. He shakes that thought away, because they’ve never even met, even if their dreams are real. Even if everything Percy says is real.   
  
He still doesn’t think he’d belong in Ilvermorny. That no House would choose him and he’d be sent back home anyway, but he doesn’t tell Percy this.   
  
“I hope it’s not too long before we see each other again,” Credence says and looks at Percy with a smile. “I like it here.”   
  
Percy gazes at Credence and he looks sad. “I do too,” he says. “I don’t know why we’re sharing dreams. Maybe we’re supposed to meet.”   
  
Credence shrugs. “Someday, maybe,” he says. “How long is school?”   
  
“Second term ends in May,” Percy says. “You have time, you know.”   
  
“Yeah,” Credence says and smiles, even if he knows he won’t be going to Ilvermorny. “It’s not even Christmas yet.”   
  
“Almost,” Percy says and smiles. “The castle is decorated. There’s a huge tree in the common room. Well, a lot of them, all over the place. My family doesn’t decorate for Christmas.”   
  
“My mother doesn’t either,” Credence says. “It sounds nice. The school is in a castle?”   
  
“Yeah,” Percy says. “There’s nothing like it. You’ll think about what I said, won’t you?”   
  
Credence nods.   
  
Percy eyes him for a while before he sighs and scoots closer to Credence. He wraps his arm around his shoulders. “I hope you do,” he says. “I wouldn’t let anyone hurt you again.”   
  
Credence bites his lip hard enough to hurt because his eyes sting and he’s already embarrassed himself crying in front of Percy once. He only nods again and tentatively leans against Percy, because he thinks Percy is his friend and he’s allowed to do that. He’s never had friends before, but Percy doesn’t seem to mind.   
  
“I wish I knew how to come back here whenever we wanted,” Percy says. “So there isn’t such a long time between.”   
  
“Me too,” Credence says. “Maybe if we think about it more, it’ll happen.”   
  
“Maybe,” Percy says and he’s smiling. He frowns after, scrunching up his face and sighing. “I think Fontaine is waking me up again. Merry Christmas, Credence.”   
  
“Merry Christmas,” Credence says as he looks at Percy.   
  
Percy smiles and this time he doesn’t disappear so abruptly. He fades away, like he’s waking up slowly, and it’s better than the last time. But Credence’s heart feels heavy in his chest and tears are in his eyes as he looks out of the lake.   
  
He has a lot to think about, but he knows it’s a sin to abandon his mother and he doesn’t want to burn in hell. If witches aren’t evil, if they’re only normal people, Credence doesn’t have to worry about hell for that reason.   
  
Just all of the other reasons Ma has told him he’ll burn, until he gets himself right with God.   
  
Credence doesn’t know how to do that, but he knows running away isn’t how. It’s his mother’s choice, in the end, which school he goes to, and he can’t force her hand. And he won’t let witches make him leave home, an abandonment of his family.   
  
He sighs and looks up at the blue skies and hopes he sees Percy again soon.   
  
——   
  
Professor Calla never comes back.   
  
No witches or wizards come, so Credence thinks Percy took him seriously when he told him not to tell anyone. He’s thankful for it, for a while.   
  
Ma punishes him often, even though he doesn’t use magic and hasn’t tried in a long time. May passes, the end of Percy’s first year, and Credence doesn’t dream of him.   
  
He watches the scars on his back grow until he’s thirteen years old and doesn’t think he can take it anymore. Credence has gone to the Woolworth Building, only a few blocks away from where he lives, and he sees nothing magical about it whenever he does. But he goes one day, he goes with the intention of telling someone about what’s happening.   
  
The doorman turns him away and says that he’s trespassing on private property and can’t give sermons with his mother there.   
  
Credence is afraid to tell him he’s a wizard because he doesn’t think the doorman is and he risks his mother finding out and hurting him more than ever.   
  
He goes back home and doesn’t try again.   
  
It’s not until Credence is fourteen years old and it’s late summer before he goes to sleep and opens his eyes in a familiar place.   
  
Part of him wants to wake up, wants to not keep doing this, even if it’s years in between. He knows what Percy is going to say and he’s already tired. There’s an excitement to see his friend, to see him older, but Credence doesn’t want Percy to tell him to come to Ilvermorny.   
  
He gave up on that idea on his eleventh birthday.   
  
“Hi, Credence.”   
  
Credence turns around and looks at Percy.   
  
He’s certainly no longer eleven years old. He’s taller but skinny in the way all fourteen year olds are, though still not as skinny as Credence. And, Credence realizes, he is now taller than Percy. But Percy doesn’t look unhealthy the way Credence knows he does. He looks confident and his hair is different, more pristinely taken care of, keeping up with trending hairstyles.   
  
Credence has had the same haircut since he was seven.   
  
“Hi, Percy,” Credence says and thinks that they don’t sound the same anymore.   
  
They don’t sound like little boys but they’re not adults yet either.   
  
Percy is handsome, Credence realizes, and he’s ashamed of that thought. A thought that’s been coming to him more and more lately. If he wasn’t going to burn in hell for being a witch or abandoning his mother, he’ll burn for being an invert, that he knows.   
  
He supposes he should have expected to be abnormal in this way too, but Credence won’t let Percy know it.   
  
“You never went to Woolworth, did you?” Percy asks quietly.   
  
Credence looks at him and shrugs. “Once. They turned me away,” he says and if it’s a little meanly, well, he can’t help it.   
  
Percy looks confused. “What do you mean they turned you away? They would never.”   
  
“Maybe they knew I didn’t belong too,” Credence says. “That I should stay home.”   
  
“Did you even talk to a witch or wizard?” Percy asks impatiently. “Did you go inside?”   
  
“I was told to leave,” Credence says and he won’t tell Percy the truth. That he really doesn’t know if he spoke to a wizard or not, that he didn’t try to go inside, and that he knows it’s too late to try anymore.   
  
He’s already missed three years of school and it’s going on a fourth year. It doesn’t matter anymore.   
  
Percy looks like he can’t quite comprehend what Credence is saying. “Who told you to leave?” he asks. “Credence, come on, try again. You can’t give up.”   
  
“It’s not so bad anymore,” Credence says and it’s the truth. His mother doesn’t beat him as often and has stopped talking about him being a witch altogether, like it never was true to begin with. “I don’t want to talk about this.”   
  
“I know you’re scared—”   
  
“Percy, please,” Credence says quietly. He’s so tired, plagued by nightmares all the time, and he doesn’t want this place to become one too. “I’m okay where I am.”   
  
“Yeah, sure,” Percy says with a bitter sarcasm Credence has never heard before. “Credence, I just want to help you.”   
  
“You could help me by not talking about this anymore. It’s fine, Percy,” Credence says. “I’m fine. Ma is homeschooling me. Maybe not about magic, but I’m still… I’m learning.”   
  
“You’re not learning about your own world,” Percy says, his brow furrowed. He’s grown into his eyebrows a little, but not quite all the way. “You can’t let yourself be brainwashed by her, Credence.”   
  
“Percy,” Credence sighs and looks down at the ground. _“Please.”_   
  
Percy sighs loudly, but he doesn’t say anything else. He moves closer to Credence, until his arm brushes against Credence’s. “I’ve been going to sleep with my wand every night since we were last here,” he says. “So I could show you it.”   
  
Credence tries not to think about the new design Ma has come up with to be printed soon, of a wand being snapped in half. “A real one?”   
  
“Yes, of _course_ a real one, Credence,” Percy says sourly, until he looks at Credence. He rolls his eyes when Credence grins. “Oh, ha ha. Here, mine is ebony wood.” He pulls out a wand, very much a real one, inky black with what looks like a base of pearl, along with a small band of it a few inches up from the bottom. “Wampus hair core. It’s really good for Transfiguration and Defense.”   
  
Credence looks it over with a smile. “What’s Transfiguration and Defense?” he asks and looks at Percy.   
  
Percy doesn’t look altogether happy with the question but he sighs. “Defense is defense. Defense Against the Dark Arts is what the class is called. We learn to protect ourselves against dark magic or dark creatures. Curses and hexes. It’s my most important class.”   
  
“To be an Auror.”   
  
“That’s right,” Percy says. “And Transfiguration is about changing the physical shape of an object into something else. Mostly. Like… like a plate into a goblet.”   
  
“That’s amazing,” Credence says with a smile. He thinks if he doesn’t smile, he’ll only cry, because he does wish he was next to Percy in a castle full of magic and learning this. But he can’t be. “Can you show me?”   
  
Percy nods. “Sure,” he says and looks around. He tugs on Credence’s sleeve and leads him up the hill to the oak tree. After he’s grabbed a small branch off the tree, he sets it on the ground, points his wand at it and says what sounds like gibberish.   
  
But to Credence’s great surprise, the branch twirls upward and forms into a goblet that reminds Credence of the Holy Chalice. He gapes at it for a while and Percy laughs, leaning down to pick it up and hand it to Credence.   
  
He takes it, feeling it’s cool metal and heftiness, very real, and detailed, with markings carved into the metal.   
  
“That’s incredible,” Credence whispers. “How long did it take you to learn how to do this?”   
  
“Learned that one in first year, but it looks a lot better than it used to,” Percy says. He holds his hand out for the goblet and Credence reluctantly hands it to him. Percy pushes his own wand into Credence’s hand after that.   
  
Credence nearly drops it and is rather terrified that he’ll accidentally harm Percy or himself, but Percy gently grasps his wrist.   
  
“Like this,” he says and adjusts the wand in Credence’s shaking hand. He folds his thumb over it, until Credence is gripping it more naturally, but he’s trembling badly enough that Percy keeps a hold of his hand. “It’s okay, Credence, it’s not going to hurt you. It’s just a tool we have to channel our magic. You have to tell it to do something. It won’t do it on its own.”   
  
Credence swallows roughly and nods in understanding as he stares down at the wand. He doesn’t feel anything, no magic the way he used to when he was a child, warmth in his chest and heart.   
  
But it still feels good to hold it, like holding a wand is right, and Credence tries not to think about that.   
  
Percy is insistent on teaching Credence a spell, though Credence is terrified, but Percy holds his hand gently and touches his back and it helps.   
  
It takes about twenty minutes before Credence lights the tip of Percy’s wand and he does drop it after that, which makes Percy laugh for a while. He’s got a nice laugh, Credence thinks a little wildly, while trying not to squirm in embarrassment or faint at the mere idea of having used a wand for the first time.   
  
Percy teaches him how to extinguish the light after that. They do it a few times, until Percy’s no longer touching Credence and he can do it on his own.   
  
It feels good. It feels amazing, really, and he tells Percy so. Percy smiles at him, but it’s tinged with such sadness that Credence can’t look at him for long. He gives Percy his wand back and thanks him, telling him he can teach him another spell the next time they see each other.   
  
He asks to hear about Ilvermorny instead.   
  
They must talk for hours, longer than they’ve ever been able to, and Percy tells Credence about his classes, his professors, his friends, a game called Quidditch, and many other things.   
  
When Credence asks if Percy has a girlfriend, his entire face turns red, until Credence is laughing and Percy hits his shoulder. Credence reaps what he sows when Percy asks him the same and his ears burn, but he manages to say _maybe someday._   
  
That’ll never be true, but Percy doesn’t have to know that.   
  
It makes Percy annoyed for a while and Credence thinks he might have offended him, but Percy mutters angrily about no-majs being backwards and Credence thinks he’s talking about something entirely different anyway.   
  
“My sister lives in Manhattan,” Percy says abruptly some time later. “I could… I could visit with her, over the holidays, and maybe I can meet you.”   
  
“Oh,” Credence says with surprise. He feels dread then, because Ma might actually kill him if she knew he met two strangers. Maybe he could sneak away when he’s handing out fliers, but the idea of even meeting Percy and Eliza makes the blood in his veins feel like ice.   
  
They would see him, see him for who he is, pity him and offer help, over and over again. Maybe they’d even try to confront his mother and Credence would dearly pay the price for it.   
  
“Maybe we could,” Credence says softly, just so Percy stops looking so nervous. “I’d like that.”   
  
It’s true that he would. He would very much like to meet Percy, but it’s the worst idea. Worse than going to MACUSA.   
  
“Where do you live in Manhattan? Or where would you like to meet? Maybe a few days before Christmas? We have to decide now or we might not see each other again for years. December 22nd, let’s say. Where should we be?” Percy says in a rush.   
  
Credence gapes at him for a while, opening and closing his mouth. “I… oh,” he manages. “M—Maybe Central Park. The southside of it, but I don’t know. I might not be able to go that far.”   
  
“Well, where’s closer then?”   
  
Credence tries frantically to think of a response but he feels the strange sensation of wakefulness and looks at Percy.   
  
“There, there, Central Park,” he says. “I’m waking up.”   
  
“Credence,” Percy says, something hurt in his voice, and they reach for each other.   
  
When Credence opens his eyes, he can feel the ghost of Percy’s warm hands in his and stares up at the ceiling, tears in his eyes. He looks at his hands and feels ill, clenching them into fists. He looks out of his window and at the coming dawn, hearing Ma moving downstairs, what has likely woken him.   
  
December 22nd, at the southside of Central Park. It’s a seven mile walk and Credence doesn’t know how he’ll be able to manage it. He has no money for transportation and what if Percy leaves before he can get there?   
  
What if Percy isn’t there at all when he goes?   
  
Disappearing from home for so long is dangerous. Ma never lets him be outside for more than a couple of hours at a time and he’d have to be gone for double that, let alone if he actually met Percy and spent any time with him.   
  
Meeting Percy sounds too good to be true and Credence thinks it is. That it’s impossible. Because if he met Percy, he’d be punished severely for it, without Ma even knowing why, and Credence doesn’t know if that sort of pain is worth it.   
  
Yes, he thinks, but he knows what Percy would have to say about it and the tears in his eyes fall then as he rolls over and wishes that his life was different.   
  
It doesn’t mean they’ll never meet. Percy will work at MACUSA in just a few years and there are school breaks between then. Credence is only going to get older and Ma will let him be gone longer when he is. When he’s eighteen, he could even leave and never look back.   
  
With that thought, with that faint bit of hope, he gets ready for another long day.   
  
——   
  
Credence tries.   
  
He tries to think of a way to get to Central Park, all through the rest of the year, and he can’t think of a way beyond running away. There’s no excuse in the world his mother would listen to if he asked to go and she would never take him.   
  
He doesn’t dare ask her to, though he becomes more desperate as the day gets closer.   
  
On the morning of December 22nd, Credence leaves the church. He only gets half a mile away before he stops and knows he can’t meet Percy and his sister. He simply can’t, for the same reasons he thought of in the summer.   
  
They will try to change it. They’ll force him to go to MACUSA or they’ll go or they’ll confront Ma. They’ll do something reckless and Credence will pay for it in blood, with sins he’d have to pray for forgiveness for months. It’s not worth it and if Percy knew that he’d be facing that, he’d tell Credence to stay home.   
  
Credence goes back to the church, freezing, his cheeks and nose red, but Ma isn’t back from grocery shopping yet. He walks up into his bedroom and sinks down onto his bed and cries.   
  
He’s trapped here, trapped here until he dreams of Percy again, trapped here until he’s eighteen and can escape.   
  
He dearly hopes Percy isn’t waiting for him in Central Park, that if he goes there he realizes Credence won’t come, and he’ll leave. He could spend time with his sister, who no longer lives at home, who he loves so much and looks up to, and hopes he can be as free as she is someday.   
  
That’s what Percy should be worried about. Not Credence, who he has never met, who he has been forced to share a dream with.   
  
Credence isn’t worth being tied to in any way and he hopes that they don’t dream of each other anymore, because he doesn’t want to hear Percy’s disappointment again.   
  
He doesn’t think he could bear it.   
  
——   
  
For a while, Credence thinks he got his wish.   
  
They don’t dream of each other at all throughout the next year. When December 22nd comes around again, Credence doesn’t even entertain the thought of going to Central Park. He pushes it out of his mind and helps his mother, whose church is growing.   
  
There are more patrons every year, more people to listen to her message, and Credence hands out fliers almost every day.   
  
The scars on his back have grown numerous but he doesn’t look at himself in the mirror anymore. He only tries to do what Ma asks of him, all the time, and tries not to make any mistakes. He has no friends and Ma prefers it that way, but she lets him read Christian books now and then, most in favor of burning witches at the stake.   
  
He ignores their subject matter in hopes of becoming better at reading. He does become better, but he’ll never be well read. It’s not such an area of shame anymore, at least, when he is nearing seventeen years old and rarely has to look at the dictionary anymore to find out what a word means.   
  
It’s January, bitterly cold and miserable, and Credence is sixteen years old as he watches snowflakes fall outside of his window. He falls asleep to the sight and when he opens his eyes, he sees blue skies and fluffy white clouds, feels grass beneath his feet and a warm breeze through his hair.   
  
Credence closes his eyes and doesn’t feel excitement.   
  
When he looks out at the lake, he sees that Percy is already here, sitting at the top of the hill, his arms hanging over his knees, his back to Credence.   
  
He doesn’t know he’s here yet and Credence takes a moment to simply stare at him and wish he wasn’t burdened with this. That neither of them were.   
  
Percy’s obviously hit a few growth spurts like Credence has, more filled out and not so skinny anymore. His hair is a bit longer and when he turns his head, looking up at the sky, Credence can tell he’s finally grown into his eyebrows.   
  
It makes him smile and he moves closer, until Percy hears him and looks back at him.   
  
Credence’s heart constricts painfully, with the same wickedness as last time, only far more acutely now. Percy is immensely good-looking, becoming a young man, and Credence’s fingers and toes tingle in an embarrassing way. His stomach swoops when Percy smiles, but it’s still a shadow of what it can be.   
  
“Hi,” Credence says. “I wonder what makes this happen.”   
  
“I’ve never been able to figure it out,” Percy says and his voice is deeper, no longer so young. “I’ve tried to look it up and ask people who might know, but they don’t have any ideas either. It’s always after a mundane day that it happens.”   
  
Credence knows what mundane means and nods. “Yeah,” he agrees and moves to sit next to Percy. “Strange.”   
  
They’re quiet for a while and it’s not entirely comfortable.   
  
“I went to Central Park. The last two years,” Percy says after a while. “You never came.”   
  
Credence squeezes his eyes shut for a moment. He bites his lip and looks out over the glistening lake. “I tried,” he says softly. “I could never get away from home. She doesn’t like me to be far away, especially not for hours. If I had—”   
  
“I understand,” Percy says shortly. He sounds resigned and sighs. “I’m going to be an adult in March. When school ends, I won’t ever have to go home again. You’re going to be an adult in April by wizards’ standards. You could leave too.”   
  
“I’m not a wizard,” Credence says quietly. “I’ve never been a part of that world.”   
  
“But by our law, you will be either way. Meet me then. Leave your mother and come live with me. My sister will help us.”   
  
Credence looks up at the sky and shakes his head. “If she found me, by no-maj law, I could go to prison or be forced to live with her again until I’m eighteen. I don’t want to risk it.”   
  
“Like I’d ever fucking let her find you,” Percy says with a surprising amount of venom. “I told you I’d never let her hurt you again and I meant it, Credence. Meet me in Manhattan in the summer. June 1st. Meet me at Woolworth in the morning. Let me help you.”   
  
“Percy, I’m not a wizard.”   
  
“Yes you fucking are,” Percy says. “Stop saying that. You can still learn. We’re sixteen, for Merlin’s sake, not ninety. You have all the time in the world to learn. I’ll teach you.”   
  
Credence is tired. He’s tired of all of this. Tired of having any hope, because he can’t. It’s too dangerous to have hope and he wants to believe that if he went there, if he went and met Percy, he’d take him away from it all. But nothing has ever worked out for Credence, nothing at all, and he knows it’ll just be taken away from him, in one way or another.   
  
“I want you to stop worrying about me,” Credence says and is embarrassed by the way his voice shakes. “I wish these dreams stopped so you weren’t forced to. Please just… just go be an Auror and don’t worry about me anymore.”   
  
“Credence,” Percy says sternly. “That’s not going to happen. Don’t you dare give up when we’re so close. When _you’re_ so close. I’m going to find you if you don’t come and I’m going to take you away. I’ve been worrying about you for eight years now, I’m not going to stop just because you asked nicely.”   
  
Credence furrows his brow and looks down at his knees. “I’m not worth any of this. What if you get into trouble?”   
  
“I wouldn’t,” Percy says with some exasperation. “There’s no way for either of us to get in trouble. It would be okay, Credence. It would be better. Better than we’ve both ever had. Don’t give up, do you hear me?”   
  
“I’m tired,” Credence says quietly. “I’m just really tired, Percy.”   
  
“I know,” Percy says. “I know what that tiredness feels like. It’s over for me now, just a couple weeks ago. It’ll end for you by June 1st. I promise. It’s worth waiting for.”   
  
Credence doesn’t think it’s that easy. It’s never that easy for him. It might not have been easy for Percy either, but he says that it’s over like it truly is, and it never will be for Credence, whether his mother is there or not.   
  
“Alright,” Credence says, because he doesn’t know how to tell Percy that. “If you think so.”   
  
“I know so,” Percy says simply. He moves his arm around Credence and squeezes his shoulder. “I worry about you all the damn time. I’ve tried to send my owl to you but she can never find you. Where do you live in Manhattan?”   
  
Credence doesn’t want to answer. Doesn’t want Percy to know exactly where he lives, because if he does tell him and doesn’t see Percy on June 1st, Percy will come knocking. He knows that much about him.   
  
There’s danger in that, for both of them.   
  
“I live near St John’s Park,” Credence says. “East of it.”   
  
Percy nods. “I’ll send her there, so we can write to each other. I’ll make sure she knows not to let your mother see her.”   
  
Tears burn in Credence’s eyes, for the lie, for the lie he can’t quite figure out why he’s telling. He’s so ashamed of his life, of what life has done to him, and he doesn’t want Percy to see it. Even if it meant freedom.   
  
Percy doesn’t know Credence’s last name, he doesn’t know his mother’s name or that they have a church. He doesn’t know any of it and he won’t be able to find Credence. He might have to answer for that someday, but it’s almost always years in between seeing each other, so he can try to explain then.   
  
Maybe Percy will give up on him when he does and the dreams will stop.   
  
“It’ll be okay, Credence,” Percy says. “You’ll see.”   
  
Credence looks at Percy and smiles faintly. “Okay,” he says. “How has school been?”   
  
It distracts Percy well enough and Credence listens to him talk about his classes and their difficulties, his friends, and many other things. He leans against him, resting his head on Percy’s shoulder and clutching at his pajama shirt. They’re always the same fancy pajamas, just bigger every time he sees Percy, and Credence smiles.   
  
Percy’s hand moves over his back occasionally, though he gestures a lot with his other hand, and Credence laughs at some stories he tells. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever have stories of his own to tell, but it’s enough for now, listening to Percy.   
  
“Watching Fontaine trying to chat up a seventh year has been painful, frankly,” Percy is saying. “I’ve tried to give him tips, but he doesn’t listen.”   
  
“Oh? Are you good at chatting up seventh years?”   
  
“I’m good at chatting up anyone,” Percy says, a smirk in his voice. “But mostly it’s just me telling him to not act like such a fucking brute. Like a damn cave troll every time he speaks with her. It’s embarrassing.”   
  
Credence giggles a little. “If you’re so good at it, make him watch you do it.”   
  
“He _has_ watched me do it but it’s different.”   
  
“Why?”   
  
“I’m not a cave troll, for one. But I…” Percy trails off and sighs. “You know, no-majs are so bizarre.”   
  
Credence raises his eyebrows. “I think witches and wizards are pretty bizarre sometimes too,” he says. “From what you’ve told me. What does that have to do with chatting someone up?”   
  
“Because there are laws in the no-maj world that’d see me in prison for chatting up the wrong person,” Percy says darkly. “I know, the Devil lives inside me—”   
  
Credence pulls away and looks at Percy, who looks momentarily taken aback and wounded, like he thinks Credence is disgusted by him. He gapes at Percy, trying to comprehend if he’s really hearing what he’s hearing.   
  
That Percy likes boys just as much as Credence does.   
  
“Stop looking at me like that,” Percy says gruffly, his cheeks pink. “I know your mother is a religious fanatic, but it’s not looked at the same way in the wizarding world, you know. It’s considered normal. Because it is. _Stop_ looking at me like that.”   
  
Credence closes his mouth, his own cheeks hot and shakes his head quickly. “No… no, no, I don’t mean… I don’t think… I don’t know if the Devil or hell is even real,” he mutters. “My mother and the Bible and the law says it’s wrong and abnormal.”   
  
“A fantastic view on sex and love.”   
  
Credence blushes more and avoids Percy’s eye. “Ma suspects I’m an invert,” he says in a rush, because he’ll never get it out otherwise.   
  
“Don’t fucking call it that. It’s not dirty.”   
  
“It’s just… you know, they say a lot worse about it on the streets,” Credence mutters irritably. “She suspects because I’ve never been interested in girls. Not that she’d ever let me be interested in girls.”   
  
Percy’s quiet for a while. “Are you saying you like boys? Men?”   
  
Credence bites his lip, trying not to smile, because they aren’t men yet, but he thinks Percy probably detests being called a boy as much as Credence does.   
  
“I can’t help it. I’ve tried to not be that way.”   
  
“It doesn’t go away because it’s normal,” Percy says. “Just like you being a wizard never went away because it’s normal. I’ve got to get you the fuck out of there, Credence.”   
  
Credence huffs a laugh and shakes his head. “I’ve been taught what actions and thoughts are sins my entire life, Percy. I feel like I’m going to burn in hell just telling you.”   
  
“Well then, a good chunk of the wizarding population is too,” Percy says sourly. “If any of us believed in that sort of thing, which we don’t. There’s nothing wicked about liking another man.”   
  
“Lying with one?”   
  
“Try it out and tell me if it feels wicked.”   
  
Credence blushes again and looks at Percy. “You’ve…?”   
  
“Well, no,” Percy says hastily. “Not all the way. But some things, yes, and it’s good. It’s not wrong. Men marry men and women marry women all the time in our world.”   
  
“Really?” Credence asks, not quite sure if Percy is telling the truth.   
  
Percy frowns stubbornly at him, like he knows it. “Are you ever going to believe me about anything? Yes, really,” he says. “Professor Calla, Transfiguration, is married to a woman.”   
  
Credence barely remembers Professor Calla, the shock of what followed erasing most of that day for him, but he thinks she was beautiful. And she has a wife. He suddenly feels very hot in his nightshirt, his skin burning, and swallows dryly.   
  
Percy is like him. Maybe he’s not interested in Credence, no, but it’s another way Percy has shown him that perhaps he really, truly is normal. That he has a place he could fit into and actually belong, where no one would ever hiss damnations at him or call him a freak.   
  
It does give him some hope then. That on June 1st, things might really change.   
  
Though the idea that he might live with Percy, both of them attracted to men, in a world where it’s normal, might kill him before it could actually happen.   
  
Credence glances at Percy and sees his cheeks are faintly pink and wildly wonders if he’s thinking the same thing. When Percy looks at him, Credence hastily looks away and bites his lip, wishing Percy wasn’t so handsome.   
  
It feels safer here to think of him as so, but he still wishes he wasn’t.   
  
“June 1st at Woolworth, right?” Percy asks.   
  
“Yeah,” Credence says breathlessly. “June 1st at Woolworth.”   
  
“Good,” Percy says and his hand is warm on Credence’s back. “Can I kiss you, Credence?”   
  
Credence inhales sharply, holding his breath, and when he doesn’t burst into flames, he lets out a shaky sigh. He glances at Percy, who is gazing back at him steadily, and thinks Percy has very poor taste, but when might he ever be kissed again?   
  
Maybe on June 1st, but if that doesn’t work out, who knows how long it might be?   
  
“Okay,” Credence says, his heart hammering against his ribcage and what feels like a thousand butterflies in his stomach. He tries not to tense up when Percy’s hand moves to the nape of his neck, but to let himself relax into it, because Percy’s never going to hurt him.   
  
Percy moves closer, his other hand on Credence’s cheek, steady where Credence is not, and he leans in, kissing Credence.   
  
It’s a gentle, chaste kiss but a firmer one follows when Credence presses closer. He’s never done this before and he’s embarrassed about his lower lip wobbling the way it does, but it doesn’t take long for him to forget about it entirely.   
  
Percy’s good at this, Credence thinks, or maybe it just feels that good. But he leads Credence at the right pace, with the right amount of pressure and sweetness, and Credence clutches at his pajama shirt. He moves his arms up and around Percy’s neck after a while and the noise Percy makes is going to be branded into his mind forever.   
  
Maybe they’re both a little over eager, but Credence doesn’t want it to stop. It should be sinful and wicked and it should make him feel bad, but he feels entirely the opposite. Even more so when the kiss deepens and he tastes mint and chocolate and something more and thinks he could do this forever.   
  
Thinks that he can’t wait for June 1st to come.   
  
They stop for a while to breathe, but it seems one of them can’t help but start it up again, and it could be minutes or hours, but Credence loves every second of it.   
  
When they do finally part and hold each other, breathing deeply, Credence rests his head on Percy’s shoulder and looks over the rolling hills that stretch on and on.   
  
“Thank you,” he says softly.   
  
“You don’t have to thank me for that.”   
  
Credence smiles. “I meant for everything. Thank you for everything.”   
  
Percy pulls back to look at Credence and smiles. “You’ll be there, won’t you?” he asks. When Credence nods, he asks more firmly, “Do you promise?”   
  
“I promise,” Credence laughs. “I’ll be there, Percy.”   
  
Percy grins and kisses Credence, which he hopes keeps happening, whenever they see each other.   
  
When Credence feels the tug of wakefulness, he tells Percy, and promises him again that he’ll be there, and he wakes in his room, the touch of Percy’s lips still against his.   
  
Credence sheds no tears today. He only smiles and looks at the coming dawn and hopes that this is the beginning of the end of watching the sunrise from his window in the church.   
  
——   
  
He makes a mistake, as he always seems to.   
  
Credence writes _June 1st_ on a piece of paper and puts it in the bible on his bed. So when he does his nightly reading, he can be reminded that something better is coming. Something good, something hopeful, and though he’s already been held by Percy, been kissed by him, it’s going to be so different outside of their dreams.   
  
In May, Ma finds the note.   
  
Credence has finished cleaning up after dinner and walks upstairs and when he stops in the doorway, he sees his mother in his room. She’s holding his bible, opened to the note, and Credence feels the floor drop out from under him.   
  
“June 1st,” Ma says and looks at Credence. “What’s happening on June 1st, Credence?”   
  
“Oh,” Credence says softly, trying to think quickly, but he’s filled with terror so suddenly that it makes all thought vanish. He blinks hard a few times. “The library,” he says. “The library is hosting—”   
  
“You’re lying.”   
  
Credence flinches. She’s raised no hand, not even her voice, but it’s said so softly that it’s deadly. He looks down at the ground and clenches his hands into fists at his sides.   
  
“It’s nothing, Ma, nothing important.”   
  
“Another lie,” Ma says gently. “I would have thought after all this time you would know better than to lie to me.”   
  
Credence feels tears in his eyes and blinks them away. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I was—”   
  
“It doesn’t matter,” Ma says and balls up the piece of paper, putting it in her dress pocket. “You won’t be going.”   
  
He has to. He has to go, he has to meet Percy so Percy can take him to freedom. With a horrible realization, Credence remembers that he lied to Percy about where he lives. Percy won’t be able to find him, not right away, if at all, and his heart sinks as he realizes there will be no meeting Percy.   
  
If he can find Credence after, maybe, but he knows so little of Credence. Maybe MACUSA will know more and Percy can go there and find where Credence is.   
  
Ilvermorny knew, so Percy should be able to find out.   
  
He just has to wait a little longer.   
  
The punishment is severe and it isn’t only one night of it. He experiences it multiple times, even though Ma has no idea where he meant to go, and Credence tries to think of Percy’s lips on his own, of his promise.   
  
But Credence is weak all the same, he lets this happen to him, and he so desperately still doesn’t want Percy to see this. To see him, to see the scars that litter his back now.   
  
On June 1st, Ma won’t let him leave the church and Credence thinks it’s the longest day of his life.   
  
He’s an adult now, in the wizarding world, but not the no-maj one. He can’t leave, can’t force himself out, not when she’s got him locked in the attic for the day, not even bothering to feed him. He doesn’t know where Eliza lives, because he assumes Percy will be staying with her now before his last year at school.   
  
When no knock comes to the door that day, Credence thinks he will go to MACUSA and make them let him in. Make them listen and tell him where he can find Percy or Eliza, where he can find help.   
  
No knock comes for a week and that’s how long Ma keeps him in the attic. He throws up his first few meals from little food and the sun hurts his eyes for a couple of days, but when Ma pushes fliers into his hands and tells him not to come back until he’s done handing them out, Credence is relieved.   
  
She tells him God will know if he disobeys, but God has yet to punish him, only her, and Credence finds he doesn’t care.   
  
He throws the fliers into the nearest trash bin he can find by Woolworth and approaches the building. He walks up to the doorman and opens his mouth, but he cuts Credence off.   
  
“No sermons—”   
  
“I am not here to preach,” Credence says with some anger. “I have an appointment.”   
  
“With?” the man asks with an unimpressed frown.   
  
“Director Wolfs,” Credence says firmly.   
  
The man appraises him with more interest then. He glances back and forth before holding out his hand. “Wand,” he says and raises his eyebrows when Credence blinks at him. “It’ll be given back to you when you leave, at the front desk. You can’t have a wand in the Auror department.”   
  
“I… I don’t…” Credence trails off and feels his cheeks burn with shame. “I don’t have a wand.”   
  
“You don’t have a wand,” the man repeats. “Why?”   
  
“It’s none of your business.”   
  
“You’ll find it actually is. If your wand has already been confiscated and destroyed, I will call security right now.”   
  
“My mother never let me go to school,” Credence says. “I never got a wand—”   
  
The man narrows his eyes at Credence. “Likely story,” he says. “I’m assuming a wizard gave you a few ideas about the wizarding world and didn’t bother to Obliviate you after. What’s your name?”   
  
Credence thinks that this is bad. He can see the man’s finger moving to press something near the door and turns on his heel and walks off. The man shouts after him but Credence keeps his head low and disappears into the crowd.   
  
How can he explain to someone that he’s a wizard if he doesn’t have a wand? Why hasn’t Percy found him yet?   
  
It’s confusing and frightening and Credence makes it back home, a little late, but Ma doesn’t punish him when he says that he only had a handful of fliers left and wanted to be sure to hand them all out.   
  
He goes into his room and sits on his bed, his head in his hands, and tries to think.   
  
Credence can try again. He can try to tell the man he’s a wizard and even if security comes, he can convince them that he’s a wizard, that he knows the Graves family, that he is friends with Eliza and Percival Graves, and he can get them to listen. He can prove it to them somehow, he knows he can, and his heart begins to steadily calm down.   
  
It’s not over yet. He still has hope.   
  
But when Credence gets near the Woolworth Building a few days later, there are two doormen and, from being very good at detecting when people are acting abnormally, he can see there are other people watching the door at different points around the street, even if they’re dressed normally.   
  
It scares him because he thinks it’s _because_ of him. That they mean to arrest him and maybe they won’t let him tell the truth. Maybe they’ll take the truth away, he thinks that’s what _Obliviate_ means, and the thought terrifies him so much that he leaves before he’s noticed.   
  
Credence tries twice more in the coming weeks and it’s the same both times. He stops going because he risks getting caught and it makes him want to tear his hair out in frustration.   
  
He goes to sleep every night desperately wishing that he’ll dream of Percy and Percy will tell him what to do before he has to go back to school. But he doesn’t, doesn’t dream of Percy, and Percy never comes. He never knocks on the door, even though he said he’d find Credence, and maybe Credence has finally disappointed him.   
  
Maybe when he didn’t come on June 1st, Percy gave up on him, no matter the promises he made. Even after he kissed Credence.   
  
But Credence still waits. Days turn into weeks and weeks eventually turn into months. August 27th comes and goes and Credence knows that Percy is back in Ilvermorny for his final year.   
  
Credence is hollow and alone.   
  
Ma punishes him for melancholy and feeling sorry for himself, for not being grateful for what she’s given him, and Credence begins to hate her for it.   
  
It’s a burning hate under his skin, for his mother, for himself, for what life has dealt him. For nothing ever working out, for no promises of a good home to actually come true, for the pain he’s experienced. It festers in him, in his heart and blood and mind, and Credence grows angrier every day that he doesn’t dream of Percy.   
  
Every time she hurts him, he thinks he rots away just a little bit more.   
  
The holidays pass in a blur and April approaches.   
  
“Ain’t you tired of handing out fliers about witches?” he’s asked one spring morning, shortly after Percy’s eighteenth birthday, shortly before his own.   
  
Credence looks up from the fliers and frowns at a man leaning against the wall not far down from him. He ignores him, looking back down at the fliers and handing them out to anyone who cares to take one.   
  
“You so scared of witches?”   
  
Credence doesn’t answer, because he is used to this, and only hopes it means he won’t have to run home yet again. It’s about the only thing he’s good at, running.   
  
“What if I told you I knew a witch?”   
  
When Credence looks at the man, balding and thin, but dressed fairly well, a half eaten apple in his hand, he winks.   
  
“Someone you want to burn at the stake?” Credence dares to ask.   
  
The man laughs. “This ain’t Salem,” he says and gestures for Credence to come closer. He does so, hesitantly, prepared to defend himself and run if necessary. The last thing he expects is for the man to flash a dark brown wand at him. “You actually know anything about the witches and wizards you preach so much about?”   
  
Credence looks at him, his heart thumping wildly, and swallows. “You’re a wizard,” he says. The man only winks again. “Show me.”   
  
The man moves around the corner, where it’s a bit quieter, and Credence follows. He pulls out his wand and taps it against the apple, which vanishes completely. Credence stares at his empty palm and looks at the man, thinking that perhaps he truly did need to get angry, so he didn’t drown in his fears.   
  
_“Why_ are you showing me?” Credence asks.   
  
“You got a magical signature,” the man says. “I’m good at pickin’ those out, see. But I’ve seen you around here for a long time, ever since you were a little boy, even if you didn’t see me. Your mom never let you be a wizard, did she?”   
  
Credence blinks slowly at him, sweat on his forehead, and nods jerkily.   
  
“Thought so,” the man tsks. “Bryan, by the way. You look like you’re seventeen.” When Credence nods again, Bryan smiles, missing an upper tooth. “Good, that’s good. Means you can get the fuck away from her. What’s your name?”   
  
“Credence,” Credence says breathlessly.   
  
“Credence, huh,” Bryan says and looks around. “Look, Credence. You got the bad hand in life, right? No school, no wand, a mother that never let you be yourself. If you help me, I can help you.”   
  
“How?” Credence asks suspiciously, because he is highly aware of these sorts of offers of help. They never actually help, in the end.   
  
“A job,” Bryan says. “I’m down a couple guys in Boston. I help you get a wand, teach you how to use it, get you away from Mommy dearest, and you work for free. Room and board, sure, but no wages. Not until you earn it.”   
  
Credence’s heart is racing. “What sort of job?” he asks, a little weakly. It’s too good to be true. “Is it illegal?”   
  
“In our world? Nah,” Bryan laughs. “Just selling alcohol, but there’s no prohibition in the wizarding world, see. I just need guys to run it through town and not get caught by no-maj police. Always make a headache of things, no-majs. Think you’re up for it?”   
  
Credence stares at him for a while. He looks down at the fliers in his hand, at the broken wand, but Bryan takes them out of his hand and drops them. They flutter to the ground and Credence looks at the one Bryan steps on before looking at him.   
  
“I’ll be able to get a wand?” he asks.   
  
“That’s the first thing we’re gonna do, Credence. Can’t be a wizard without a wand and you’ll need to know a few spells before you can get to work. How ‘bout it?”   
  
Every instinct Credence has is telling him this is a bad idea. He knows every sort of person in New York and Bryan is not an upstanding citizen. But he offers freedom, freedom Percy was never able to give, no matter how hard he tried. Freedom Credence was never able to achieve for himself, no matter how hard he tried.   
  
He thinks of Ma and the church and how there’s nothing in it that he ever wants to see again.   
  
“Okay,” Credence says. “Where do I get my wand?”   
  
“Dragon Street, of course,” Bryan says with a grin. “Your eyes are going to be wide open soon, Credence, once you see all that you missed out on. Come on. Dragon Street and then Boston, home away from home.”   
  
When Bryan walks off down the sidewalk, Credence follows.   
  
——   
  
Dragon Street is a place of wonders to Credence. It’s everything he imagined the wizarding world to be and yet he has a hard time enjoying any of it.   
  
It was supposed to be Percy showing him these things. Not a stranger, a stranger who is hardly reputable and who Percy would probably scold him for even following, but Credence needs freedom.   
  
He needs to get away from the church before his anger boils over and something tragic happens.   
  
Some people eye Bryan in a way that confirms for Credence he isn’t the most upstanding of citizens. He is tempted to ask him if he knows the Graves family but considering they are so well known for being Aurors, he decides it would be a bad idea.   
  
Credence doesn’t have any money, certainly no wizarding money, but Bryan only says he’ll owe him a few favors after he’s bought some things for him. Clothes, mostly, but Credence does walk into a wand shop for the first time. He nearly sheds tears to see all of the long, thin boxes on shelves, just the way Percy described it to him.   
  
Bryan pats his shoulder and laughs and tells him it only gets better from here.   
  
A wand chooses Credence, pliable and beautiful, with a Wampus hair core, its color so light it’s nearly the opposite of Percy’s. But it’s right, it’s what he’s been missing since he was eleven, more than anything else. It makes him feel warm and whole and complete and he smiles when Mister Jonker tells him it’ll be suited to whatever he’s suited to, rather than the other way around, the way wands usually are.   
  
Once they leave Dragon Street, they leave New York altogether, by something called Apparition. Credence remembers Percy mentioning it, but not telling him it’s just about the most horrible feeling in the world. It makes him vomit what little he had in his stomach but Bryan only laughs again and says he’ll be doing it himself in a few months.   
  
Boston is busy. Maybe not as busy as New York City, which Credence has never even been outside of, but there are a lot of people, both in the wizarding world and outside of it.   
  
Credence stays in the apartment Bryan has so he can be close to teach. He’s barely given room to breathe in an entirely new state, in an entirely new life, his own upended so dramatically and suddenly, but Bryan insists on teaching him almost immediately. All of the basics.   
  
They can do most of those in the apartment but sometimes they have to go out of the city to practice more involved spells. Bryan says Credence takes to everything well because he’s not eleven and because his wand helps and he’s not a bad teacher. He’s no Percy, who will be finishing his last year at Ilvermorny in just a few weeks.   
  
Percy will be with Eliza in Manhattan and applying for the Auror training program. Credence wonders how he can get back there one day. Bryan says he runs between New York City and Boston often and Credence thinks he’ll be able to go with him. That he’ll be able to meet Percy.   
  
Credence learns a lot of defensive spells and a lot of offensive ones as well. To protect himself, Bryan says, and something every witch and wizard should know. Percy would agree, Credence thinks.   
  
Life gets busier once Credence can handle his wand well enough to not be a danger to himself or anyone around him. Summer flies by and Credence helps run alcohol through Boston.   
  
He’s aware that what they’re doing isn’t legal in the wizarding world either, but he’s away from Ma. Away from the church, away from pain, and what harm is there in selling alcohol to no-majs? It’s not legal because there are effects that no-majs don’t know about, but it doesn’t cause anyone harm. Just the occasional bout of drunken fighting in the streets, but it lines everyone’s pockets.   
  
Not Credence’s, though, not yet.   
  
Bryan keeps Credence close, teaching him something new every day, smarter than he looks. He’s funny and though he’s not an upstanding citizen, Credence likes him. He’s comfortable with him by the time autumn comes around and Bryan starts telling Credence to come along on bigger jobs.   
  
Bigger jobs means smuggling illegal potions ingredients or objects, sometimes even animals, to the various places they need to go. There’s a black market where the animals are bid on but Bryan laughs and tells Credence they might as well make it a Care of Magical Creatures class and tells him what each animal is and what magic they are capable of.   
  
Credence is good at blending in. He always has been, but once he starts holding his head up straight, not letting the weight of the world bend his spine, he blends in even more. He looks like an everyday eighteen year old and he’s polite and kind where it matters, which means no one is ever suspicious of him.   
  
He starts getting paid. It’s not a lot, but he’s able to start saving money, to start buying things for himself. Bryan cashes in a favor every now and then but it’s never too much. Never more than Credence can - or will - handle.   
  
It’s theft and smuggling, not murder or Dark Arts, and while he knows Percy would be disappointed in him, he thinks he would also approve of it as having been his only way to escape.   
  
Since Percy never came for him.   
  
Besides, Credence knows it won’t last forever, and he thinks Percy would forgive him for what he does if he stopped. He wants to see Percy, desperately so, goes to sleep every night hoping that he’ll wake up in their shared dream, but the months tick by.   
  
Credence is in Manhattan twice before his nineteenth birthday but he is so busy and they have heat put on them both times by MACUSA and he can hardly go see Percy. He tries to write to him when he’s back in Boston, but whenever he puts pen to paper, he can’t find the words.   
  
It’s a hot and sticky July that Credence lies down one night and tries to find some sleep. It’s not easy to do when it’s so hot and his fans help very little, even with a cooling charm. The day was long and boring and Credence and Bryan are waiting for the next job to roll in.   
  
Credence counts the shadows cast on his wall from the blinds on his windows and realizes he fell asleep when he opens his eyes and sees blue skies above him.   
  
His heart skips a beat and Credence looks wildly around at rolling green hills, at dazzling lakes, at fluffy clouds above, and feels both relief and despair.   
  
Relief that this hasn’t stopped, that it will keep happening, that he gets to see Percy again. And despair that he will have to explain everything.   
  
Percy materializes underneath the oak tree at the top of the hill. He’s not wearing silk pajamas, but a fine suit, the jacket, waistcoat and tie missing. He’s barefoot and Credence thinks he must have gone to sleep in his clothes or perhaps he has a sofa he’s asleep on.   
  
And he’s no sixteen year old anymore. Neither of them are but Credence stares at Percy, at the nineteen year old man he is, and feels his heart thump, thump like it’s saying _Percy._   
  
_Per-cy Per-cy_   
  
That’s when Percy sees him and the relief on his face is palpable. The relief and the anger and frustration, the heartache, and Credence feels it all keenly with him.   
  
They walk to each other and embrace, tightly.   
  
_“Fuck,”_ Percy says. “Do you know how fucking hard I’ve been looking for you? You fucking liar, you told me you lived near St John’s Park. You don’t. You promised you’d fucking be there, Credence—”   
  
“I tried,” Credence says, tears stinging at his eyes. “I tried, Percy, I tried. My mother locked me in the attic.”   
  
“For fuck’s sake. She locked you in the damn attic?” Percy says angrily and pulls back, his hands on Credence’s shoulders. He looks over his face, as if inspecting him for injuries, injuries not inflicted on his body. “My sister and I looked everywhere for you, Credence. Everywhere. I asked my professors at Ilvermorny and they wouldn’t tell me where you lived, said it would be a violation of your privacy, like they couldn’t fucking check on you themselves. Eliza and I requested your records at MACUSA and you don’t even fucking have one!”   
  
“Wait, wait, wait,” Credence says breathlessly, his head spinning. “You looked for me?”   
  
“Of course I did!” Percy says defensively. “When you didn’t come… you promised me you’d be there. I was scared something happened to you. I’ve been scared this entire fucking time, not having a dream and not being able to find you. Do you know how horrible it was to find out you didn’t have a file in MACUSA?”   
  
“Why would I have?” Credence croaks.   
  
“Because… because you’re a _wizard,_ Credence,” Percy says with thin patience. “And all witches and wizards have a file in MACUSA. Even ones who don’t go to Ilvermorny.”   
  
Credence frowns. “Then why don’t I have one?”   
  
Percy shakes his head and looks down at the ground, then back up at Credence. He cups Credence’s cheeks in his hands and Credence’s heart leaps, because he thinks Percy, who is no longer a boy but an incredibly handsome man, is about to kiss him.   
  
But he doesn’t. He looks upset, in fact, his thumbs brushing under Credence’s damp eyes.   
  
“When I became an Auror… when I finished the training program,” Percy says slowly, “I went to no-maj orphanages in Lower Manhattan. I got a copy of your adoption certificate.”   
  
Credence blinks slowly at Percy and furrows his brow.   
  
Adopted. Not even Mary Lou’s blood. No wonder she cared so little for him. It must have been a slap in the face, he thinks, to realize the boy she adopted was in fact a wizard. It makes him want to laugh but he can only close his eyes and sigh.   
  
There’s relief in knowing he doesn’t share her blood. But it makes him feel hollow all the same, that she only adopted him. That he never had a real family to begin with.   
  
He looks at Percy and is tired again. Tired of everything.   
  
“What’s my real name?”   
  
Percy frowns. “You were given to the orphanage when you were a few months old. You didn’t have one. That woman named you. It’s why MACUSA doesn’t have a file. Why Ilvermorny probably says Credence in their book.”   
  
Credence bites his lip and reaches up, holding onto Percy’s arms. “You went to the church,” he says softly, because he knows Percy learned his last name. Learned his mother’s name.   
  
Percy’s eyes are wet and he moves his hands to Credence’s shoulders, squeezing them. “I went,” he says. “I went just a couple months ago. She said you were dead.”   
  
“Oh, Percy,” Credence whispers.   
  
“I didn’t believe her,” Percy says and sniffs. “I knew she was lying to me. But you were gone and I didn’t know where you went. You never came to MACUSA. Why, Credence, why didn’t you?”   
  
Credence swallows and shakes his head. “I ran away,” he says. “A few weeks before my eighteenth birthday. A wizard found me and told me he knew I was one. He offered to help me. I tried, Percy, I tried to go to MACUSA, but I messed it up. They thought I was a no-maj that a wizard forgot to Obliviate and tried to arrest me.”   
  
“They… they fucking what?” Percy asks. _“Who?”_   
  
“The doorman.”   
  
“You only got to the fucking doorman,” Percy nearly snarls. “I’m going to rain hell down on him. Fuck, Credence, we have the worst luck. Are you still with that man?”   
  
“Yeah,” Credence says and smiles a little. “He gave me a job. After he bought me a wand.”   
  
Percy sighs and rubs Credence’s arms before pulling him into another embrace. “I’m glad you got away. I’m glad you got your wand finally. That you’re where you belong,” he says quietly. “Wish I could have been the one to be there with you though.”   
  
“I wished that too,” Credence admits and sniffs. He rubs Percy’s back and smiles a little, to think he ended up an inch taller than Percy. “It’s okay now. I’m away from my mother and I’m… I’m pretty good with my wand these days. I have a job and I’m doing okay.”   
  
“Where are you?” Percy asks and when he pulls away, he holds the nape of Credence’s neck, just like he did when they were sixteen. “Tell me where you are so we can finally meet. There’s nothing that can stop us now.”   
  
Credence gazes at Percy and thinks that there is. He’s a criminal now, the kind Percy hates, the kind he locks away in prison. He doesn’t think Percy would arrest him if he knew, but he also thinks Percy would be able to drag it out of him in person, and he fears his disappointment.   
  
Fears losing his friendship. Fears that one day they will come here and Percy will hate him and wish none of it ever happened.   
  
“I’m far away now,” he says. “I left New York behind, Percy.”   
  
Percy stares at him, furrowing his brow in what looks like confusion. “What do you mean?” he asks, but it sounds like he knows exactly what Credence means.   
  
“I left New York behind because I don’t want anything more to do with it,” Credence says. “I don’t want to be dragged back some day. I’m happy, I have a place I belong. Everything you wanted for me.”   
  
“It doesn’t matter where you go, Credence,” Percy says and looks around. “Clearly. You and I are a lot more than New York. Credence, we worked so damn hard to try and meet. Are you telling me I’m part of New York that you left behind?”   
  
Credence bites his lip and it hurts, hurts immensely, when Percy steps away from him. “Percy,” he says quietly. “I just don’t think it’d be a good idea.”   
  
“Why not?” Percy demands. “What are you hiding from me now?”   
  
“I’m not… I’m not hiding—”   
  
“You’re lying to me. Again. I didn’t know that before but I sure as fuck do now,” Percy says angrily. “I want what’s best for you, Credence, that’s all I’ve wanted since I met you. I wanted to see you happy and in the place you deserve to be. I looked for you for _years._ Don’t fucking lie to me.”   
  
Credence winces and looks down at the ground. “I just don’t want to think about New York or my mother or MACUSA or everything I missed out on,” he says. “It’s painful for me. I don’t think you’d like me anymore, Percy.”   
  
“Because you’re a damn moron,” Percy says and shrugs unrepentantly when Credence shoots him a glare. “I’m never not going to like you, Credence. You think I…” He trails off and looks angry with himself. “You think I kissed you and just stopped thinking about you after that? You think I’ve tried this hard to find you and that I won’t like you anymore? I knew you might have moved on from me in that way, but I didn’t expect you to want nothing to do with me anymore.”   
  
“It’s not that, Percy,” Credence says. “I… I tried too, I did. I tried, but it got to be too much. I care about you, of course I do, and I’m happy to see you. Beyond happy. I just…”   
  
“What are you hiding from me?” Percy asks plainly.   
  
Credence stares at him and doesn’t know how to answer that. Doesn’t think he can. He can’t watch Percy dismiss him and declare him worth nothing like everyone else, can’t watch him decide Credence is only a burden, a mistake.   
  
“I’m sorry,” Credence whispers. “It’s not a good idea. I want to see you here, Percy, but not—”   
  
“No,” Percy says. “You don’t get to pick and choose. If you don’t want to see me outside of this place, then you don’t get to see me in it either.”   
  
Credence sighs. “Percy, please,” he says. “We can’t control this.”   
  
“I’m an Auror fresh out of the training program,” Percy says and he’s hurt. Hurt in a way Credence wants to fix, wants to soothe, but Percy’s eyes are wet and he’s so angry too. “I am now very talented at waking myself up when I need to.”   
  
Credence blinks and feels his heart skip a beat. “Percy, it could be years before we see each other again,” he says quickly, frantically. “Please, don’t leave.”   
  
“Think about that, Credence. Think about it being _years_ before we see each other again and get your head on straight. Write to me when you do and we’ll talk then. You know where to find me.”   
  
“Percy— _Percy!”_   
  
Credence stares, in shock, at where Percy had only just stood. He’s gone in the blink of an eye and Credence feels like he’s been struck. He staggers back a step and moves his hand over his mouth.   
  
He just left.   
  
Left Credence here by himself, when they’d barely had any time to talk.   
  
Credence wishes he could wake himself up too and he does try, but it doesn’t work. He sits heavily in the grass and sniffs, angrily wiping his cheeks. Percy is right to be upset with him, but Credence can’t tell him. Can’t tell him what he is now.   
  
He could leave, he knows, leave Boston and go somewhere else. He’s got enough money to start over and find something else, even if he doesn’t have an education. He could write to Percy and meet him and apologize and be what Percy expects him to be.   
  
What Credence would expect himself to be, had life been kind to him.   
  
It would be silly to wait years to speak to Percy. He can fix this, soothe Percy’s anger the way he wants to, soothe the hurt, and kiss him, maybe, if Percy lets him.   
  
A knock to his bedroom door wakes Credence and he hears Bryan telling him he’s got fifteen to get ready, because they have a job.   
  
Credence stares up at the ceiling, at the morning light cast through his blinds, and he is so very tired and he hurts as much as he’s ever hurt, but he can make it better. He can fix this. As soon as the job is done, he’ll write to Percy and he’ll meet him.   
  
It’s been so long waiting for it to happen and they both deserve it, but Percy especially so, after all he’s done for Credence. He never found him, but he tried and he never stopped trying.   
  
No one has ever shown such devotion to Credence. He’ll make it right.   
  
——   
  
It’s a four day job moving goods between Boston and Staten Island, along with collecting payments and doing a few small time jobs while they’re in New York for their boss.   
  
They are moving a large batch of dragon eggs delivered from Mexico to Staten Island, where they’ll be picked up and taken across the Atlantic. There’s an absurd amount of money in it for them just for moving them and on the fourth night, after they’ve safely transported the crate of eggs to the docks, they wait for the people who will be picking them up.   
  
“Almost makes you want to keep one of ‘em,” Bryan sighs. “Too bad they keep such a close count on them.”   
  
“Too bad?” Credence laughs. “I wouldn’t want one of them to go missing by accident or because you took one. Of course they keep close count.”   
  
“But imagine having a fuckin’ _dragon_ . Sure, he’d get big and you’d have to take him outside of the city. But he’d like you, if you raised him.”   
  
“I’m not aware of any dragons being fond of their handlers when they get big enough,” Credence says. “It’s one of the most dangerous jobs to have.”   
  
“I could pick the right one,” Bryan says as he looks at the crate, warmed by magic. “I’m good at pickin’ out good magic.”   
  
Credence rolls his eyes and runs his fingers along his wand as he holds it. “Good at picking out which magic would be good for this line of work,” he says dryly.   
  
“Hey, hey, hey, is this complainin’ I hear? After everything I done for you?” Bryan asks and shakes his head, tsking. “Breakin’ my heart here, kid. You could be handing out fliers decrying our whole world right now.”   
  
“Ma would never let me out this late,” Credence says and grins when Bryan laughs.   
  
The spells hit the dock then, with such force it shakes the ground beneath them, and Credence hears someone shout _Aurors!_ They curse and abandon the eggs because they’re not worth going to prison over.   
  
It’s almost impossible to Apparate as curses are actively being thrown his way and Credence has learned it’s a bad idea, because he knows he could take one with him and kill himself fairly easily.   
  
Credence keeps up with Bryan as they dart into a maze of shipping containers but he hears footsteps behind him, much closer than he was expecting, and he has no time to say anything when he goes left and Bryan goes right.   
  
The footsteps are behind him still and Credence curses, thinking very strongly about leaping into the damn water, because he can cast a good Bubble Head Charm and it might save his ass from a prison sentence.   
  
Smuggling dragon eggs means a longer sentence than smuggling other animals.   
  
Credence rounds a shipping container and ducks into a small space between two others, coming out on the other side and turning left.   
  
He finds himself face to face with a wand.   
  
Credence falters and it’s enough for the wizard to disarm him, catching his wand easily. Credence stares, blinking hard a few times, because he knows this face so well.   
  
Dark eyes stare at him, intense and angry, so very angry, beneath a heavily furrowed brow, such a familiar frown.   
  
Percy stares at Credence and Credence stares back, both of them breathing heavily after running, and Credence has no wand. Percy is pointing his, just as familiar as his face, inky black with moonlight shining on pearl, and Credence knows that he could never use his wand on Percy, but doesn’t know if Percy feels the same way.   
  
He is so unshakeable in his beliefs.   
  
“This is what you didn’t want me to know,” Percy says and there’s no life to his voice. “This is what you chose when you left the church.”   
  
Credence wipes sweat from his forehead and looks up at the sky, stars twinkling above him, and swallows the lump in his throat before he looks at Percy.   
  
“Yes,” he says quietly. “I knew what you would think of me. I didn’t want you to hate me.”   
  
Percy shakes his head and doesn’t lower his wand. His hand is steady. “Anywhere,” he says quietly and the anger is in his voice now. “You could have gone _anywhere._ And you’re running with these people. You know better than this, Credence.”   
  
“It was the only opportunity I had to actually get away. The only one that worked,” Credence says and sniffs.   
  
It’s overwhelming to see Percy in front of him, outside of their dreams, in the very real and harsh world, and Percy is pointing his wand directly at Credence’s chest. They aren’t embracing, they aren’t kissing and it’s what Credence feared.   
  
“You said you left when you were almost eighteen. That’s a long fucking time to find something else, Credence. That’s a long fucking time to find _me.”_   
  
Credence looks down and shakes his head. “I ended up being good at it. I didn’t want you to see this, Percy, you deserve better. But I… I was going to stop, I was going to write to you as soon as this job was finished. Like you said a few nights ago. I was going to write to you and meet you and apologize.”   
  
“Were you going to tell me about this?” Percy demands.   
  
“Yeah,” Credence says. “Maybe not right away,” he amends when Percy narrows his eyes. “But I would have when it felt right. When I had another job, when we… when we were okay again.”   
  
“We’re not going to be okay again, Credence.”   
  
Credence feels his heart skip a beat and blinks a few times, trying to make sense of what Percy means. “What?” he asks feebly. “Percy, please, this is—”   
  
“You had to do another job before you could write to me. You didn’t just stop and find me. You chose another damn job first,” Percy says. “No, Credence. You’re everything I’ve been against my entire life. A street criminal taking advantage of people, harming people, even if you don’t fucking use your wand to do it. Those dragons are going to be caged and bred and never see the light of day. The ones that aren’t are going to be abused. Killed young or killed for their hide after years of torture. That’s just the dragons. The people you run with, the people I know you run with now? You think smuggling alcohol and Polyjuice Potion ingredients doesn’t lead to harm? Doesn’t lead to people getting murdered? Killed?”   
  
Percy laughs and shakes his head and lowers his wand. “No, Credence,” he says. “We’re not going to be okay again.”   
  
Credence stares at Percy and it feels like there’s a massive weight on his shoulders, on his chest, crushing him and bending his spine. It’s hard to breathe and his heart aches, because he knows what Percy says is true. He has known it.   
  
He just didn’t think Percy would abandon him for it, even if he was disappointed, if he wrote to him and apologized. But he wasn’t given the chance and he doesn’t think, staring at Percy now, at the betrayal on his face, at the tears in his eyes, that it would have mattered anyway.   
  
Percy was always going to feel this way.   
  
“I’m sorry,” Credence whispers and he’s crying, has been for a while. He wipes his cheeks off. “I’m sorry, Percy.”   
  
“I’m sorry too,” Percy says and walks closer to Credence. “I don’t want to see you in New York again. You said you left it behind, so go back to where you are now. Don’t come here. If you do, I’m going to do my job and put you in prison.”   
  
Credence stares at him. “Percy—”   
  
“Go, Credence, before I change my mind,” Percy says and he sounds tired. He hands Credence his wand. “Take it and go.”   
  
Credence takes his wand and puts it in his pocket as he watches Percy. He wants to touch him, to feel Percy’s arms around him, but he’s ruined that, and it’s going to catch up with him soon.   
  
How much he’s ruined.   
  
“I’m sorry,” Credence says and closes his eyes.   
  
With a _crack,_ he’s back in Boston.   
  
He doesn’t know how he makes it to his apartment, but he does, and is relieved Bryan isn’t here yet. He doubts he’s been caught, he’s always so slippery, and doesn’t care at the moment anyway.   
  
Credence stumbles into his bedroom and closes the door, walking to his bed and sitting down heavily. He puts his head in his hands and thinks he’s been as stupid as Percy accused him of being so long ago. That he was right about him.   
  
It doesn’t have to mean it’s the end. Credence could still write to Percy, maybe not right away, but when he has a better job, when he’s away from all of this. He could write to him and apologize again and tell him he’s here, if Percy ever wants to meet.   
  
He might someday, when he’s not so angry.   
  
Maybe before another few years go by and they’re forced to meet in a dream.   
  
——   
  
Bryan comes back.   
  
They root out the informant from their ranks and he’s taken care of, though Credence asks for no details. He wants to make plans to get away from this, to make everything right, to make it okay again.   
  
But life always seems to have other plans for Credence.   
  
He’s trying to figure out where he might move to, where he might fit in, when the boss comes to see him. When he offers Credence a job, a big job, where he’ll make enough Dragots to last him a few years, and Credence thinks about what Percy said.   
  
Even if he’s just stealing potions ingredients and transporting them, someone might end up dead because of it. Their blood would be on his hands, already is, even if he chose to ignore that. He’s hurting people and Credence thinks before hatred grew in his heart he never would have been capable of it. The entire idea of this sort of work would have disturbed him.   
  
Percy had said they’d never be okay again. He might have meant it. In ten years, he could still mean it, no matter how law-abiding Credence is. It feels like Percy is gone, no longer in his life, no longer a person he has access to, and it makes him feel hollow and alone once more.   
  
If Percy is gone, then what does it matter? If he can never make it right, what does it matter? Not disappointing someone that isn’t even in his life anymore doesn’t matter.   
  
Credence thinks he loves Percy. He thinks he has for a long time and that’s why it hurts so damn much. He’s more than a friend and he knows Percy feels the same way. This is too much hurt to mend. He’s broken Percy’s heart and he can’t fix it.   
  
He takes the job.   
  
He keeps taking jobs until he’s twenty-two and one of them goes wrong and he watches Bryan die right in front of him before he’s able to Apparate away. Away from the job, away from these people, away from death, away from Boston.   
  
He doesn’t write to Percy, nor does he dream of him, not until a balmy night in May when he’s twenty-three years old.   
  
Credence lives in New Haven which has a small population all around, but an even smaller wizarding population. It means that the wizarding shopping center he works in is the only one around and he’s still not ever really busy until term is about to begin at Ilvermorny or it’s the holidays.   
  
He works in the apothecary, stocking and selling, and keeping himself out of trouble.   
  
Once he’s gone home for the day and eaten dinner, he reads on his sofa and chats with his owl, a lovely tawny girl by the name of Milly, who always puts up with his blabbering.   
  
It’s not like he has many other people to talk to.   
  
Credence lies down for sleep that night and looks at the sketch pad sitting on his window, opened to the page he opens it to every time he’s done using it.   
  
It’s a flower shaped by grass blades, a nice enough sketch, and something to remind him of his mistakes, so he doesn’t repeat them. He touches it, around the edge of the sketch so he doesn’t smear it, and falls asleep not long after.   
  
Credence opens his eyes and sees blue skies above and feels soft blades of grass beneath his fingers and tickling his neck. He’s lying on his back, rather than standing or sitting, and he doesn’t know why, but he doesn’t question the shared dream anymore.   
  
He listens to the breeze, to the grass swaying, the oak tree somewhere behind him fluttering its leaves. Credence sits up and looks down at the water of the lake, brilliantly blue and glimmering as it always has. He wonders how far he could walk before this all ended, or if it would simply go on and on like the universe, no end in sight.   
  
Credence knows Percy is here. He can feel his eyes on him and yet Credence is afraid to turn around. But fear has led him to make a lot of poor decisions and Credence does turn around, looking at the oak tree.   
  
Percy is sitting in its shade, not in pajamas again, but soft trousers and a white cotton shirt. Maybe they are his pajamas, but Credence doubts he’d give up the silk ones willingly.   
  
They stare at each other for a while and Credence wonders if Percy will force himself awake. If he’ll disappear if Credence says something or approaches him. But he’s only looking at Credence, older, no longer a teenager. A young man, handsome, muscular now rather than lanky, his jaw sharp and his eyes even sharper.   
  
Hair still cut to the latest fashion.   
  
Credence stands and walks closer to him, trying not to show that he’s afraid. He sits down a couple of feet away from Percy, looking at the fallen oak leaves on the ground.   
  
When they perk up and form into birds and peck at the ground, Credence smiles faintly. He looks at Percy, who is still watching him, no trace of a smile or warmth on him, but he hasn’t left.   
  
“Are you Director Graves yet?”   
  
Percy smiles then, humorlessly, but it’s still a smile. “Just a senior so far. Maybe by thirty,” he says. There’s no boyishness left to his voice anymore. “Are you Boss Barebone yet?”   
  
Credence laughs. “No,” he says. “My boss’s name is Thandie. She’s about eight thousand years old but she’s sharper than you and I could ever be.” He smiles. “She owns an apothecary. A legal one,” he adds.   
  
“Oh?” Percy asks. “When did you start caring about legalities again?”   
  
Credence looks down at the birds and shrugs. “A little over a year ago,” he says. “I tried to stop but I convinced myself it didn’t matter if I didn’t have anyone to care about me anymore. Not blaming you,” he adds, without looking at Percy, “just something dumb I told myself. Saw my best friend die so I moved and got a real job.”   
  
Percy is quiet for a long while. Such a long while that Credence thinks he might be expecting more and he looks up at him. But Percy is merely staring down at the birds, looking lost in thought.   
  
“I’m sorry, Percy,” Credence says. “I’m sorry I made the decisions I did.”   
  
Percy looks at Credence. “I am too,” he says. “That wasn’t who you were. Not the little boy I met. Not the man I knew.”   
  
“I know. I got so angry at my mother before I left,” Credence says softly. “I hated her. Hated her enough that I knew one of us was going to end up dead and I wasn’t sure it was going to be me anymore. When he offered the job, I was just happy to get away. Happy to have anything, even that sort of work. I didn’t let myself think of the things you said.”   
  
“Always easy to turn a blind eye to those things,” Percy says quietly. “What if someone offers you a job again?”   
  
“Hopefully it’ll just be store manager,” Credence says with a faint smile. “I like where I’m at, Percy. I’m not going to do it again. I want to make good friends and maybe…” He shakes his head. “I just want to be normal. That’s all I ever wanted, really. I went about it wrong for a while.”   
  
“Yeah, just a while,” Percy says dryly and sighs. He looks up at the branches and leaves as they sway above them. “I think about you all the time, Credence.”   
  
Credence bites his lip and nods. “I think about you all the time too, Percy.”   
  
“I wish I didn’t.”   
  
Credence’s heart feels fractured to hear that said so plainly and his breath feels like it’s been stolen away.   
  
“I should say that I wished I didn’t,” Percy clarifies, oblivious to Credence’s pain, still looking up. “I was angry for a long time. I stopped being so angry because I could see why you would choose what you did. Stupid, still, but I understand why you felt trapped and at home with it.”   
  
It’s not easy to make sense of what Percy is saying and Credence stares at him, frowning. “What does that mean?” he asks. “That you’re not angry anymore?”   
  
Percy shrugs and looks at Credence. “It means that I’m staying here, when I had every intention of waking myself up the second I saw this place,” he says. “It means I want to talk to you. The way we used to before it went to shit.”   
  
Credence bites the inside of his cheek to stop the sting in his eyes. He smiles, a little wobbly, and nods, looking at the oak leaf birds. “I’d like that,” he says. “I’ve missed you a lot. I see you in the national paper sometimes.”   
  
“As long as it’s not _Witches Weekly.”_   
  
“Do you have such an active and public love life that you’re featured in _Witches Weekly?”_ Credence asks with amusement.   
  
“Everyone thinks Sera and I are romantically involved,” Percy says with a faint smirk. “And her next promotion puts her in line to become President of MACUSA. Gets those tongues wagging.”   
  
Credence has been hearing about Sera since Percy went to Ilvermorny and he might be jealous, if Percy hadn’t kissed him and told him he was interested in men already.   
  
“No passionate flings with your fellow Aurors?”   
  
Percy grimaces. “Of course not. Hardly professional,” he says. “Especially if I’m aiming for the Director’s seat.”   
  
“I was joking,” Credence sighs, but it’s fond. “I’m sure you’d never have a fling with anyone in MACUSA.”   
  
“Maybe,” Percy says, “maybe not. At least no one from floors three and up.” He smirks a little. “What about you? Any clandestine romances before you went straight?”   
  
“Maybe,” Credence says, “maybe not.”   
  
Percy chuckles and leans back against the tree trunk, crossing his arms over his chest. It makes the muscles in his arms stand out more and it’s a very fine look. He’s still lean but he’s strong and Credence thinks he’s only going to keep getting more and more handsome every year.   
  
“I turned down a lot of people for almost three years, you know,” Percy says. “I was hoping it would be you the first time I shared more with someone than I did at school.”   
  
Credence looks away and his heart hurts to hear it. “Believe it or not,” he mutters. “But I felt the same way. I’m sorry you missed out because of me.”   
  
They both know when that desire ended.   
  
“I didn’t think it’d go this way when I asked to kiss you,” Percy says with a wry smile.   
  
“You regret it.”   
  
“I didn’t say that,” Percy says. “If I had known this is how it would be, I would have made sure I could find you when we were seventeen and do what I said. Live together and make things better. I bet we’d still be together.”   
  
Credence thinks he’s going to have to ask Percy to stop talking like this, because he’s breaking his heart. It hurts to hear, all of the could have beens, and he knows it’s his fault that none of it happened.   
  
He would apologize, but he doesn’t think Percy is looking for that.   
  
“Where do you live now?” Percy asks.   
  
“New Haven,” Credence says quietly. “I live and work in the city. The wizarding shopping center is pretty small but it’s nice. Quiet and peaceful.”   
  
“Sounds better than Dragon Street.”   
  
“I really like Dragon Street,” Credence says with a smile. “I haven’t been in a few years, but I always enjoyed it. I can see why you wouldn’t.” He smiles more when Percy only shrugs. “How’s Eliza?”   
  
“Good,” Percy says. “Asks about you a lot. She’s still working at the boutique on Fifth. Runs it now, actually, so she’s doing well for herself.”   
  
Credence nods and picks up one of the oak leaves that isn’t currently pecking at the ground. He runs his fingers over it, smooth and healthy, and realizes nothing here has ever looked dead. No yellowing grass or browning leaves.   
  
It’s a place of peace and friendship and life and love, maybe, once upon a time.   
  
Percy holds out his hand and Credence thinks he wants the leaf for a moment and is deeply grateful he didn’t give it to him when he realizes Percy wants his hand. He gives it willingly and Percy pulls him closer, until they’re sitting side by side, leaned into each other.   
  
Credence is shaking rather unexpectedly, but Percy’s arm moves around his waist and he rests his head on his shoulder and squeezes his eyes shut. His hand on Percy’s thigh clutches tightly at his trousers, until Percy’s hand covers it and he relaxes, just a little.   
  
“It’s okay,” Percy says quietly. “I’m sorry I couldn’t find you and I’m sorry I was angry with you. It’s okay, Credence. It’s going to be okay.”   
  
Credence finds he can’t reply and nods against Percy. He sniffs and breathes in the scent of Percy’s cologne, something different than he’s ever smelled before, something rich and expensive. But it’s good, amazingly good, and Credence wishes he was with Percy right now, in the waking world, being held and holding him like this.   
  
“Can I write to you?” he asks softly.   
  
“I was thinking we could meet. Really meet,” Percy says. “You’re only a short jump away.”   
  
“I am,” Credence says and smiles. “I live in a townhouse on James and Grand.”   
  
Percy chuckles. “Good to know,” he says and rubs Credence’s hip. “I’ll come by soon.”   
  
“It’s the ugly green one,” Credence says and grins when Percy laughs. He holds Percy’s hand and looks at him. “Thank you.”   
  
Percy smiles and it’s warm finally, the way it used to be. “I think we come here for a reason. As hard as the world made it for us to meet, it has to mean something.”   
  
“Yeah,” Credence agrees. “It has to. I never tried to find out what’s doing this.”   
  
“I stopped looking a long time ago myself,” Percy says. “I don’t care what it is. It brought you to me.”   
  
Credence’s heart leaps in the way it hasn’t for a long time and he bites his lip, because he’s tired of crying, even if he always does when it comes to Percy. Percy gazes steadily at Credence before he moves his hand to Credence’s cheek and leans in, kissing him.   
  
It’s so easy to kiss him back, resting his hand over Percy’s, and he tastes mint and whiskey, certainly more grown up than the last time they kissed. And Credence isn’t so nervous this time, is more confident in his ability to not make a fool out of himself, and it isn’t long before he’s lying on his back and Percy is on top of him, their arms and legs tangled together.   
  
Oh, it’s good. It’s right, it’s what should have happened a long while ago, and Credence isn’t going to let Percy go again. Isn’t going to let anything stop them this time, because he wants Percy, wants him with all his heart, and he loves him still.   
  
He’s always loved him, even with years and heartache and other people in between them.   
  
They stay like that for a long time, talking if they’re not kissing, and Percy’s lips on Credence’s neck feels divine. He sighs in pleasure and contentment and hopes that very soon they’ll finally be able to do this in the waking world.   
  
Percy tells Credence he has to get up for work and that he’ll be at Credence’s that night or the next. They kiss, long and deep, and Credence doesn’t want to see him go, but Percy eventually fades away.   
  
Credence stays on his back, looking up at the leaves of their oak tree and the blue skies beyond it. It’s okay now, he knows, and it’ll keep being okay.   
  
He sits up and looks at the leaves on the ground, until they perk up into birds and lions. He takes one of each, putting them in his pocket, and waits until the sun wakes him up.   
  
——   
  
Work goes by incredibly slow that day and Thandie keeps asking what bee is in his bonnet, which makes him laugh, but he doesn’t tell her. She tells him he can leave early if he wants to, but he has a feeling Percy works later nights than he does.   
  
If he even comes by at all tonight.   
  
Around six he gets home and makes dinner and talks to Milly. He’s talking a mile a minute, he knows, and Milly looks like she’s barely refraining from playing dead after a while, but he’s so nervous.   
  
“What if he doesn’t come tonight?” he finally mutters, when it’s going on half past eight. “What if he doesn’t come at all?”   
  
Milly hoots at him and flies from her perch to the window, looking at him expectantly. He sighs to lose his company, but it is her usual time to go out, and he opens the window and watches her fly off into the night.   
  
There’s a knock on his door then and Credence feels his heart begin to thunder as he closes the window. He looks at the door and swallows dryly, moving to it on wooden legs.   
  
He opens the door and the relief he feels nearly makes him sway, but he grips at the doorknob and stares at Percy on his doorstep, dressed in a handsome black suit.   
  
“This really is the ugliest green house I’ve ever seen.”   
  
Credence grins and laughs and moves closer. He takes Percy’s hand and pulls him inside and he finds himself swept up in Percy’s arms as swiftly as he was hoping for.   
  
They kiss and cling to each other in Credence’s small living room, finally outside of their dream, finally together, and it’s the best Credence has felt in all his life. He slides his fingers through Percy’s hair and Percy’s arms are warm and secure around him.   
  
Credence thought they might talk for a while, if they ended up in the bedroom at all, but he thinks he should have known it was going to go this way the moment Percy told him he’d come by. They move upstairs and into Credence’s bedroom and undress each other, frantic and urgent, kissing in between.   
  
Percy is unbearably handsome, beautiful with moonlight on his skin, as eager for Credence as he is for Percy. Credence takes his hand and leads him to the bed, but they don’t quite get there.   
  
“Credence,” Percy breathes.   
  
When Credence looks at him, he sees pain in his eyes, immense pain, and realizes Percy has seen what his mother left him with. Percy’s eyes are bright and he looks up at the ceiling like he’s trying to stop tears and _oh,_ Credence understands. Merlin, he understands, and he takes Percy’s cheeks in his hands and kisses him, kisses his tears away, and tells him it’s not his fault.   
  
Percy wants to blame himself for not stopping it sooner, even says so, but Credence will tell him for the rest of their lives it’s not his fault, if he has to. Life was against them for a while, not by their choices and eventually by Credence’s foolishness, but they’re here now, they’ve finally made it, and he tells Percy this and kisses him until Percy kisses him back.   
  
They make it into bed and Percy is a comfortable weight against Credence, warm and strong, and it doesn’t take him long to notice the sketch pad on the window sill or the bird and lion made from oak leaves. He smiles, tenderly so, and holds out his hand toward his clothes.   
  
Credence only has a little time to be floored by the show of wandless magic, knowing how damn hard it is and of course Percy can do it, before Percy hands him something small, pressed and preserved between two pieces of clear glass.   
  
It’s a little sun made from grass blades and Credence grins as he looks at it and if he’s crying when he laughs, well, Percy is too. The sun rests on the window sill after that and once they’ve kissed each other’s tears away, it’s easy to find passion again.   
  
They make love, gentle and slow, not in the mood to rush this, to rush what they’ve both been thinking about for seven years. Credence holds onto Percy and Percy kisses him, kisses him until Credence gasps his name, and looks down at Credence, love and affection in his eyes.   
  
It’s easy to stay wrapped around each other, to cling after, and even when they part, it’s not for long. Percy and his wandless magic makes it easy to get comfortable and he holds Credence, his chest pressed to Credence’s back and their fingers intertwined.   
  
“I love you,” Credence says softly and he’s not afraid to say it. He only wishes he could have earlier.   
  
“I love you too,” Percy says easily, no doubt in his voice, and kisses Credence’s neck.   
  
Credence smiles and squeezes his hand. “I wish we could do this every night,” he says. “I know you’re busy—”   
  
“You could move in with me, Credence.”   
  
Credence blinks a little and now he is afraid to look back at Percy. “Oh,” he says softly in surprise. “Are… are you sure, Percy?”   
  
“I am,” Percy says. “Well,” he says dryly, “I know you left New York behind but—”   
  
“No, no,” Credence says in a rush, his cheeks warm. “I didn’t mean it. I was being stupid. I just… I don’t want it to be too soon.”   
  
“Is it too soon when we’ve known each other for fifteen years?”   
  
Credence lightly elbows Percy, until he chuckles and kisses Credence’s neck again. “We don’t know we’ll like living together,” he says breathlessly, though he thinks that’s not going to be a problem at all.   
  
“You think I’m going to kick you out as soon as I invite you in,” Percy says. He doesn’t sound offended, only a little resigned, and sits up, so he can look at Credence and Credence can look up at him. “Are you ever going to believe anything I tell you?”   
  
“I do believe you,” Credence says and sighs, smiling. “You can’t blame me for being afraid things won’t work out.”   
  
“They will between us,” Percy says. “They always will. I told you, we share a dream for a reason. I don’t have any doubts about this. About you.”   
  
Credence sees that Percy means it. That it’s easy for him to believe, to say, as unshakeable in his beliefs as always. And, fortunately or unfortunately, Percy seems to be right about everything.   
  
A talent him and his sister both apparently possess.   
  
“Okay,” Credence says. “Yeah. I want to move in with you. I’ll… I’ll probably keep my job here, it’s not such a big jump.”   
  
“Fine by me,” Percy says and smiles. “I’ll come have lunch with you when I have the time and we’ll go to sleep together every night.”   
  
Credence grins and nods. “I hope your place isn’t green.”   
  
Percy laughs and leans down to kiss Credence. “High rise apartment. You’ll like it.”   
  
“Do you have room for all your silk pajamas?”   
  
“Not as much as I’d like. Next promotion we’ll move into a bigger place,” Percy says and smirks. “Maybe the one after that we’ll find room for the ones I buy you.”   
  
Credence laughs for a while and turns until he’s on his back. He wraps his arms around Percy’s neck and pulls him down to kiss him. “It’s all going to be good, right?” he asks when they break apart and Percy’s forehead is pressed to his.   
  
“Yeah, love,” Percy says softly. “It’s all going to be good.”   
  
——   
  
Credence moves into Percy’s high rise apartment a week later. It’s New York-sized, but it’s perfect for them both, and it’s modern and beautiful and everything about it screams _Percy,_ in the best of ways.   
  
He’s a little afraid to mix their things together, to take away from the apartment, but Percy knows Credence and assures him that everywhere he’s lived has been missing Credence. That he’s finally going to feel like he’s home with Credence - and his things - there and it’s enough to soothe the fear.   
  
Percy’s busy as an Auror, especially a senior Auror, a lot of fieldwork that’s dangerous and it takes Credence a while to get over that, but he knows how good Percy is. How accomplished he is, though not the exact extent of it until he meets Eliza and she tells him all that Percy has done in his life.   
  
She believed Percy about the dreams from the beginning, telling Credence that not only does Percy not have a good enough imagination to come up with something like it, but that he never would have talked about it if he wasn’t so sure it was real. He was only eight at the time, but that eight year old is still so familiar to Credence, and it makes him laugh and makes his heart feel even more warm.   
  
Eliza is wonderful, six years older than them, sharp and witty but gentle and kind, always with a story to tell. They both don’t speak of their parents and Credence doesn’t ask Percy about them for a while.   
  
His mother is gone, but his father is _still walking this earth,_ is what Percy has to say about him, with a wry smile, and Credence thinks about his own mother somewhere in this very city doing the same.   
  
It doesn’t bother him anymore, because their lives have moved beyond their parents and the pain inflicted on them.   
  
Time moves by steadily and it’s almost always good. Credence and Percy are made for each other, like two pieces slotted together to make one whole, easy and without any effort. There’s a lot of laughter and love between them, made better with the amount of time they have to spend apart due to Percy’s job.   
  
There are scares occasionally, injuries or close calls, always leaving Credence a trembling mess, but it does get easier after the first year.   
  
It gets easier with each year that passes. Everything from accepting Percy’s job for what it is to being together and Eliza often tells them they make her sick, too sweet to stomach, but Percy and Credence are both perfectly alright with that.   
  
Percy teaches Credence some things that Bryan never did, things he would have learned at Ilvermorny, and it feels good. It feels like completing his magic and even though Credence never got to experience Ilvermorny, there’s something special about Percy teaching him. He’s so patient and understanding, never pushes Credence, unless Credence needs it to get over some fear.   
  
He even lets Credence tell him about the years spent apart, the years spent not looking for each other. Credence doesn’t tell him a lot about the work he did, but the people he met, about Bryan, who he thought might lead him into something terrible - and he did lead Credence into a life of crime, but Percy’s over that - and ended up being his best friend instead. They were fifteen years apart in age and Credence misses him, has nightmares about the night he watched him die, and Percy never judges him or tells him it’s his own fault.   
  
He’s only ever gentle and genuine in it and Credence is amazed by it every time and knows just how damn lucky he is that Percy forgave him, that he gave him another chance.   
  
Neither of them are sure they’ll have the dream again, but they do, shortly before their twenty-sixth birthdays, and decide that going to bed wearing clothes is probably a good idea. But once Percy has finished laughing at Credence’s intense embarrassment, they swim in one of the lakes for the first time, and why shouldn’t they?   
  
The dream is a place all their own, not ever touched by anyone else, alive and waiting for them every few years. It’s unexplained but they prefer it that way.   
  
That winter, right around Christmas, Credence will find an even deeper appreciation for their shared dream, no matter the heartache that comes with it.   
  
It’s six days before Christmas and Percy is busier than ever, the holidays always an active time for criminals, but he’s also taking any overtime offered because he’s competing with his fellow Aurors for the position of Captain that will open up next year. Captain Nguyen is retiring and Percy tells Credence the job is his and everyone knows it, but he still has to work overtime.   
  
Credence only rolls his eyes at him.   
  
It’s nearly ten at night and Credence thinks about going to bed. He stopped waiting up for Percy fairly quickly whenever he worked late nights like this, because they made him worry and also tired and moody the next day. Percy always wakes him and kisses him and tells him he loves him when he gets home, so it’s not so terrible.   
  
The knock at their door is unexpected and for a moment Credence’s heart sinks. Percy would never knock and it’s so late, but Credence tells himself firmly to calm the hell down. It’s probably just a neighbor.   
  
But his legs feel like jelly when he stands and walks to the door. He looks out of the peephole and who he sees makes him feel weak all over, but he wrenches the door open and looks at Eliza.   
  
“Eliza,” Credence says and feels sick, feels faint, and she moves forward and takes his cheeks in her hands, just like Percy does.   
  
“It’s okay, Credence,” she says, but her eyes are red-rimmed. “He didn’t come back with his team. They’re looking right now. There’s been no active crimes taking place, so they think he’s delayed, but he’s missed two check-ins. That’s all it is.”   
  
“Eliza,” Credence croaks and tears sting at his eyes. “He wouldn’t, he wouldn’t if he’s just delayed, you know he wouldn’t.”   
  
“Shhh,” Eliza says and brushes a tear away. “Come on, inside.” She’s got far more strength than he does and gets him onto the sofa without him noticing.   
  
Credence stares, not really seeing anything, only thinking of Percy. Percy and his meticulousness, his never-missed check-ins, the way he would never be delayed without getting a message to someone. No active crimes doesn’t make it better, because he could have been ambushed.   
  
He could be dead.   
  
Eliza pushes a glass of water into his hands and makes Credence take a few slow sips of it, to try and calm his racing heart, to keep him from getting sick.   
  
“They’re looking for him. You know Theo won’t stop until he finds him,” Eliza says. “And you know Percy would go to the ends of the world to make sure he gets home to you every night. He’s going to come home.”   
  
“What if he doesn’t?” Credence asks, though he knows it’s of no help, that he’ll only hurt himself when he asks, but Eliza grasps his hand tightly.   
  
“He will,” she says simply. “He always does and he always will. You’ll see. It’s going to be okay.”   
  
Credence can’t find anything to say. His thoughts feel uncontrollable, imagining a million different things that could have happened, each one of them worse. Eliza puts a cold cloth on the back of his neck and he feels ashamed that he’s behaving this way, but when he apologizes, she merely tells him that’s what she’s there for.   
  
The minutes tick by slowly, minutes into hours with no news, and Credence has to pace now and then to try and rid himself of nervous energy. He tries to think about what he knows about New York himself, but it’s been years since he ran with the wrong crowd, and things change too much for him to have any ideas. Not any that Aurors wouldn’t already.   
  
When Fontaine’s Patronus arrives, Credence feels dread, because it’s not _Percy._   
  
“Still looking,” Fontaine’s voice says, brusque and clipped, but there’s tightness to it that’s not usually there. “We’re following a few promising leads. The whole department is out on the streets. Sit tight.”   
  
Credence feels ill again. _A few promising leads_ can mean _we found his blood and are trying to find his body,_ but Eliza distracts him with a few firm words.   
  
“I’d tell you to try and get some sleep if I thought you were capable of it,” she says as she squeezes his hand. “It’ll be—”   
  
“Sleep!” Credence says loudly and so abruptly that Eliza flinches. “Sorry,” Credence says hurriedly as he looks at her. “Sleep. I need to go to sleep.”   
  
“Why?” Eliza asks slowly and looks like she might be questioning if he’s finally cracked.   
  
“The dream! The dream, he could be there,” Credence says. “If he’s asleep or… or unconscious, he could be there, tell me where he is, we could find him—”   
  
“Credence. Credence,” Eliza says and shakes him a little, because he’s running out of air. “You’ve never been able to control it. It happens every few years, that’s what you’ve both told me.”   
  
Credence shakes his head. “It’ll work,” he says and he doesn’t know how, doesn’t know if he’s tricking himself or not, but he _knows_ it’ll work. He feels it in his heart. “It’ll work, I’ll find him. I have to sleep. We have sleeping draughts— no, no those won’t work.”   
  
He stands and paces through the living room, gripping at his hair, as he tries to think about falling asleep when sleep is the last thing he feels capable of. A sleeping draught means dreamless sleep and he can’t take one of those.   
  
“Credence,” Eliza says and sounds mildly amused, which is so bizarre at the current moment that he gapes at her. “I’m good at charms, you know.”   
  
“The best,” Credence agrees and frowns for a while. He blinks and raises his eyebrows. “There’s a charm for sleep?”   
  
“Oh, kiddo,” Eliza sighs. “Come on, let’s give it a try. It’ll wear off after a few hours but I’ll wake you if I hear something first.”   
  
Credence blinks a few times, hard, and nods as she gestures for him to lay down on the sofa. He does so, but he is so restless he can barely keep still, and though the idea of a charm being cast on him to make him sleep is frightening, it’s not nearly as frightening as the idea that he’s never going to see Percy again.   
  
He feels like he needs to run, adrenaline in his veins and his stomach is churning, enough so to make him feel like he’s going to vomit when he rests back. But he looks up at Eliza and nods firmly.   
  
“It’s okay, Credence. If he’s not there, we’ll still find him,” Eliza says as she pulls her wand out of her pocket.   
  
“He’ll be there,” Credence says. “I know he will.”   
  
Eliza points her wand at him and Credence stares at her, trusting her and trusting the dream.   
  
Credence opens his eyes and hadn’t realize he’d closed them, but blue skies above him and a warm breeze in his hair tells him that he’s asleep.   
  
That it’s worked.   
  
He sits up with a gasp and staggers to his feet, looking out over sapphire lakes and emerald hills. So, so familiar, so safe and warm, and if he’s here, it means Percy is. Credence turns around and looks at the oak tree.   
  
Percy is there.   
  
He’s lying on his side, his arm slung at an awkward angle over his abdomen, and Credence sees bright red blood on his face. He’s not moving.   
  
Credence approaches him, scared shitless, but as he gets closer, he sees the rise and fall of Percy’s chest. Credence sinks onto his knees next to him and touches Percy’s neck, feeling a strong pulse, though his skin is too cold. Outside somewhere, maybe, Credence thinks wildly.   
  
“Percy,” he whispers. “Percy,” he says more firmly, but Percy doesn’t stir. Credence shakes his shoulder but there’s no change and tears are in his eyes as he pushes Percy completely onto his back. He shakes him more and doesn’t like the way Percy’s head lolls.   
  
He’s prepared to slap him before he remembers that he is, in fact, a wizard, and there’s a spell for this too.   
  
Credence fumbles with his wand, cursing himself for his continued stupidity, but he points his wand at Percy’s chest and says, _“Rennervate.”_   
  
Stunning red light bursts from his wand and falls over Percy’s chest and Credence holds his breath as he watches him. Nothing happens and Credence fears he won’t wake, not even here, but then Percy’s brow furrows.   
  
His eyes crack open and Credence grasps his shoulders.   
  
“Percy,” he says and waits for Percy’s unfocused eyes to move to him. After Percy has blinked a few times, Credence chokes a little on a sob, because it’s not what’s needed right now. “Percy, it’s me.”   
  
“Credence,” Percy says and winces, moving his hand up to his head, where a wound must be under his hair. He looks unimpressed by the blood on his fingers and looks at Credence. “We’re in the dream.”   
  
“Where are you?” Credence asks. “Tell me, tell me where you are. Everyone’s looking, tell me, tell me so we can find you.”   
  
“Shh, shh,” Percy says and moves his clean hand to Credence’s cheek. “Where I am…” He squints and seems to have trouble remembering or concentrating. “I was the last one on a scene, everyone had just left, and I was putting up charms to keep it safe for the morning.”   
  
“You were ambushed?” Credence asks. “Where, Percy?”   
  
“Guess I fucking was,” Percy mutters angrily. “I don’t remember. Stunner.”   
  
Credence’s heart sinks. If Percy was stunned and hasn’t woken until just now, he might not know where he is and he might disappear from here for a reason he never has, to never return again.   
  
“How am I supposed to find you?” Credence asks, high-pitched and frantic. “Percy—”   
  
“Credence,” Percy says and he looks much more aware now. He sits up and though his head clearly is in pain, he grasps Credence’s arms. “Listen to me. If I wake myself up and have no access to magic, I can’t come back here. You need to figure out where I am.”   
  
“That’s what I’m trying to do,” Credence says with frustration. “Tell me how.”   
  
Percy narrows his eyes before he huffs and looks at Credence, too amused for his liking. “You’re not going to like it, but I’m pretty sure I have a fucking concussion, so it’s the best you’re getting out of me.”   
  
“Tell me,” Credence says firmly. “I’ll do whatever you need me to.”   
  
“You’re going to have to use the Imperius Curse.”   
  
“You’re fucking kidding me.”   
  
“Told you,” Percy says and smiles. “I don’t know how much time we have before I get woken up. Listen to me. Do it and mean it. Mean it with everything you have, Credence, and I won’t fight it. Wake me up there, find out where I am, as much as you can see, and tell MACUSA. Credence,” Percy says firmly when Credence sways a little. “We could have seconds.”   
  
“Okay,” Credence says feebly. He holds his wand tightly in his hand and sits up more, pointing it at Percy’s chest. “Fuck,” he says. “I love you.”   
  
“I’ll say it back when I see you soon.”   
  
Credence scowls at Percy but he only smiles and Credence says very firmly, _“Imperio.”_   
  
He can see Percy’s eyes take on a glassy look and Credence feels infinitely strange himself. He feels another person right alongside him in his mind, a person that feels pliable and he knows he can tell them to do whatever he wants them to do.   
  
_Wake up,_ he tells Percy.   
  
Percy disappears abruptly but Credence still has a tight hold on him and when he closes his eyes, he can see what Percy sees, as if he’s there at his side.   
  
He tells Percy to look around, slowly, so he won’t get caught, and Percy does exactly that. His eyes are barely cracked open and he looks around at bare trees, some branches heavy with snow.   
  
There are voices and Credence tells Percy to listen to them.   
  
_Nah, he’ll be out for hours, he got hit with both our Stunners. I’ve seen him, though, I told you, in the papers, the boss might want to get a ransom for him._ _  
_ _  
_ _Or you’re a fucking moron who attacked an Auror who half blew off your arm and the boss is going to make sure you’re never this stupid again by putting you in the ground._ _  
_ _  
_ _Nah, he won’t, he’ll be glad. You’ll see. Come on, they should be here any minute, we gotta get him to Tribeca ‘fore anyone sees us here. You got his wand still?_   
  
Credence knows one of those voices. It nearly makes him laugh, but he tells Percy to pretend he’s unconscious and his eyes close.   
  
Credence staggers to his feet and doesn’t let go of the hold he has on Percy. He thinks of the adrenaline he can still feel in his veins and he thinks about the fact that he knew this would work. That he can wake himself up too. He squeezes his eyes shut and digs his nails into his palms.   
  
“Wake up,” he says.   
  
When Credence opens his eyes, he’s back in his apartment and he thinks it might be the world’s way of apologizing for taking so much away from them before. That this is going to go right and he will find Percy and they’ll be together, no matter how hard bad people try to make sure that doesn’t happen.   
  
Eliza yelps when Credence sits up. “Oh, Merlin,” she says breathlessly. “Was he…?”   
  
“I know where he is,” Credence says and stands. He points his wand and casts his Patronus, far better at it now than he used to be, with Percy’s help. The Thestral takes up the majority of the living room. “Find Fontaine. Tell him Percy’s under the Williamsburg Bridge on FDR. Royce Adams is with him with another man and they’re waiting for more people so they can move him to Tribeca.”   
  
With a stretch of its wings, the Thestral leaps through the apartment wall and disappears into a fine mist outside.   
  
“Percy told you?” Eliza asks and grasps his arm.   
  
“Not exactly,” Credence says. “I have to go.”   
  
“Credence, don’t you dare, leave it to the Aurors,” Eliza says. “They know how to go in and not make them panic.”   
  
“So do I,” Credence says, but with a start, he feels Percy’s mind slip away from his. His heart sinks, because it wasn’t his doing, and for a moment he thinks the worst, before he realizes what happened. “Oh, you bastard.”   
  
“What?” Eliza asks. “What in Merlin’s name is happening, Credence?”   
  
“Percy decided he could handle himself,” Credence says angrily. “Eliza, please, I have to go.”   
  
“Then I’m going with you,” Eliza says sternly.   
  
Credence stares at her, at the way her dark eyebrows furrow, softer but so familiar, and decides that he’s not going to argue with her. They leave the apartment instead and once they’re outside, Credence Disapparates, Eliza’s hand in his, and they appear half a block down from the bridge. Credence leads her quietly along it and stops abruptly when he sees familiar trees down the way.   
  
Two people lie on the ground, one of them Royce Adams and the other too fat to be Percy, and Credence is absolutely going to kill him. He’s going to kill him the second he sees him. But Percy isn’t there, isn’t in the same place, and Credence doesn’t know if that’s because others got here and took him away or if he’s gone to safety.   
  
He sees the answer then, when a group of witches and wizards appear with distant _cracks_ under the trees, not Aurors, and they don’t have the time to realize the people who have called them there are on the ground before about two dozen spells are aimed their way.   
  
Aurors are here, Percy is here, likely one of the casters, and Credence is absolutely going to kill him.   
  
The most stubborn, frustrating, bossy and arrogant man he’s ever met and Credence has never loved him more.   
  
“He’s fine, he’s one of them,” Credence tells Eliza, who is squeezing his hand so tightly he can’t feel it anymore. “They hit him with two Stunners, but I woke him up in our dream.”   
  
“And he decided he was going to fight back, I suppose,” Eliza says and she sounds as angry as Credence feels, but her voice trembles all the same. “There’s Theo.”   
  
Aurors are approaching the people they’ve swiftly incapcitated and Fontaine is there and so is Jauncey and Barrows, junior Aurors that Percy has already decided he wants to promote to Captains one day. And there’s Percy himself, stepping out with Director Wolfs, blood still covering his face, but he’s walking without issues.   
  
Credence and Eliza walk down FDR toward the increasingly busy scene and Fontaine sees them first. He rolls his eyes and shakes his head but he points them out to Percy, who turns and looks at them. Director Wolfs at his side doesn’t look too pleased, but maybe Percy can explain it to him later.   
  
If something unexplainable can be explained.   
  
Percy walks toward them and they walk toward him but Eliza lets go of Credence’s hand at some point and he runs the rest of the way, until Percy’s arms are tight around him, his body warm and whole and alive.   
  
“You fucking asshole, I told you to pretend you were unconscious,” Credence says, grasping fistfuls of Percy’s coat in his hands. “You could have been killed.”   
  
“They were not nearly smart enough to be able to kill me,” Percy says. “Sorry, love, breaking out of an Imperio was one of the first things I learned. Fuck, Credence, you did so well. You were perfect.”   
  
Credence pulls back to look at Percy and he would kiss him, but his blood is in the way. “I could’ve lost you,” he says and his voice shakes too. “I almost did.”   
  
“Never,” Percy says. “You never will, Credence.” He rests his hand over Credence’s cheek and looks at Eliza, holding out his arm. “Neither will you.”   
  
“Both of you are going to drive me insane one of these days,” Eliza says as she moves closer, her eyes bright, and wraps her arms around them both. “If you two didn’t have…”   
  
“We do, Eliza,” Percy says quietly. “We do. It’s okay.”   
  
Credence looks at Percy and knows that the world isn’t always on their side, but if they didn’t share a dream, if they didn’t have rolling green hills and blue skies, Percy might be gone. Gone where Credence could never find him, no matter how hard he tried.   
  
It’s going to catch up with him soon, but for now he has the warmth of Percy and his sister, his family, and Credence lets himself be thankful. Lets himself smile, because he can fall apart later, when Percy is put back together and they are in the safety of their home.   
  
He can fall apart and Percy can put him back together too, something he’s been good at since the very beginning.   
  
——   
  
Percy seems to be so angry about being ambushed that he simply never lets it happen again.   
  
When enough time has passed that Credence feels more at ease with teasing him rather than bursting into tears, he tells him he absorbs whatever bad things happen and becomes immune to them after.   
  
It seems to be true, when he becomes Captain and leads his own team, when Director Wolfs begins to prepare Percy for the Director’s seat within a year after that. It wasn’t easy to tell him about how Credence knew where Percy was, but Director Wolfs is a good man, sharp, and only ever said _magic is strange sometimes_ and they should be thankful for it.   
  
He retires one year in June, after their thirtieth birthdays, and instates Percy into the Director of Magical Security position, with the President’s approval. There’s a celebration for Director Wolfs’ retirement and Percy’s new position both. It’s a large party with a lot of people and a lot of booze, but it’s not a place Credence is uncomfortable being at. He knows so many of these people now and a lot of them are his friends.   
  
Percy is required to be charming, to hold conversations with high wizarding society and the Court, and he’s damn good at it, even if he tips whiskey back every time no one’s looking and sends pleading looks to Credence toward the end of the night.   
  
They don’t get home until past two in the morning and even though they’re both fairly tipsy and exhausted, they’re handsy too, and don’t fall asleep until nearly three.   
  
When Credence opens his eyes and sees sunlight, he thinks it’s morning, but a warm breeze tells him otherwise and he smiles. He doesn’t feel the alcohol anymore and when he looks to his right, Percy is lying next to him, looking up at the fluffy white clouds above with a smile of his own.   
  
“Think it’ll keep happening when we’re ancient?” Percy asks and looks at Credence with a smirk.   
  
“Hopefully,” Credence says and grins. “Maybe this is where we’ll go when we’re dead.”   
  
“Fuck, I hope not. If you only had me to talk to after death, you’d try to drown yourself in one of these lakes.”   
  
Credence laughs and finds Percy’s hand, taking it and squeezing it. “Maybe it’ll just be something like this then,” he says. “It’s not such a bad place, is it?”   
  
“It isn’t,” Percy says. “It brought you to me after all.”   
  
Credence smiles and moves onto his side, propping himself up on his elbow and rubbing Percy’s chest. “Something I’m thankful for every day,” he says. “Where to now, Director Graves?”   
  
Percy smiles and holds his hand up, over the grass. Blades of it weave together until they form a ring and Percy plucks it out of the air and takes Credence’s hand, sliding it onto his finger.   
  
“I’ve got a few ideas.”   
  
And what can Credence do, but grin and kiss Percy? There’s laughter after, joyful and carefree, laughter that’s touched this beautiful place before and will keep touching it.   
  
It’s a place of peace and friendship and life and love and it will continue to be, for all the years to come.

**Author's Note:**

> This was a fic where I had a scene in mind and wrote the fic around it but then the fic did what it wanted and I didn't even get to write the scene at all lmao they be like that sometimes I suppose!
> 
> I've been having a really hard time with life and health issues lately and fic helps a lot. I'd really love to hear your thoughts. <3
> 
> Thanks as always to Mom and [Erin](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/angelsallfire). Love you both!
> 
> [Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/vtforpedro)


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